Hold On
by Jody Barsch
Summary: Beth stands close to Daryl. Daryl's eyes always float to her. The group is beginning to notice... [Set post Season 3, the bulk written before Season 4 aired, so now it's a little AU, i.e. no Zach, Carl's not in the farming penalty box, etc.]
1. Chapter 1

**AN: **_**I'm new to writing for TWD and I know this story isn't where it could be, and amounts to a lot of telling rather than showing, but, it doesn't get better if it doesn't get written**_** :)**

_**During S3 I came here looking for Beth/Daryl stories but there was only 1 (boy has that changed!) Beth was predominantly paired with Merle at that time, so I started writing this for myself. I started writing it before the end of S3, so it's not in sync with what happens in S4 (i.e. they haven't taken in people from the road, at least not as many — the prison population is pretty much Rick's survivors and the elderly and children taken in from Woodbury (Beth is alone in her age group — no Zach), and Rick and and Carl haven't taken such a time out.) Okay, enough preamble, hope you can find something in this to enjoy.**_

* * *

"_Hey_!" Daryl calls, "Mich_o_nne, M_a_ggie! Le's _go_!" Daryl straddles his bike and waits for the others to get it together. They're making a run, through a couple houses back on some small farms up the highway some ways. For the third time Daryl checks his fuel tank and his arrow supply, then impatiently drums his fingers on his handlebar grips. Carl and Rick are already in the car, also waiting. Michonne appears with her katana in hand, and Maggie emerges from the cell blocks with Beth. Maggie kisses her sister's cheek and straps on her backpack.

"Be safe," Beth smiles at her. As Maggie nods and moves towards the vehicle, Beth's eyes trail over to Daryl. His eyes meet hers, and biting his lower lip he tugs at a string round his neck, on it's a stone guitar pick. He touches it, then looks away, letting it drop down, disappearing again beneath the collar of his shirt.

Behind the wheel Rick starts the car, and Daryl revs his engine. Glenn, Tyreese and Carol open the gate, and the group of runners head out.

* * *

Maggie follows directly beside him as Daryl takes the lead into the farmhouse. His bow is raised and at the ready, her gun is poised, and they walk steadily onward, taking slow deliberate, light footed steps into the house. Daryl signals her, she nods, and he kicks open the swinging door to the kitchen. When there's no telltale snarling or clamoring Maggie heads through, backed by Daryl.

"Clear!" Carl shouts from upstairs.

"Clear!" Michonne calls from the back of the house.

Maggie looks to Daryl, he nods and lowers his bow, swinging the strap onto his back as she yells their check-in, "Clear!"

The words said, their stances immediately relax, and Maggie brushes the hair back off her face while Daryl hitches up his pants. He points her to the overhead cabinets while he takes the walk-in pantry. "Pretty picked clean alre'dy," he observes, sticking is head into an almost empty coffee canister.

"Got some canned peas," Maggie says. "Only expired by..." she inspects the label, "by ten months."

"Take 'em." Daryl pulls down a pot and stands on it to swipe the upper shelves. "_Booyah_," he exclaims, "got us some Charlie Tuna!"

She turns back to him, "Really?"

"Six cans. Industrial. Dumb asses came b'fore us didn't know how to search. Got some corn meal too," he says with satisfaction. But when he looks inside the sack, his face crinkles in disgust, "'S got b_u_gs in it."

"Take it, we'll figure it out later."

"Ain't bringin' no bugs back to the prison. Got e'nough already."

"Winter's comin'," Maggie's face scrunches in that farmer's-daughter's way it does when she makes a reasonable case for something. "We gotta take what we can."

"Whatever," he concedes dismissively. "It's goin' in _your _bag."

Maggie shakes her head in quiet amusement, but as they move on, through more cabinets, and more closets, Maggie can't keep her glance from moving sideways and landing on him. In her head she's working something out and she looks at him as he raids a junk drawer and then two remote controls for batteries. Daryl glances back over his shoulder at her, "_Whut_?" he barks. But Maggie only shakes her head and he turns back to the drawer, palming chewing gum, matches, and an ice pick. "Might as'well _say it_, you been looking at me funny _all day_. Gettin' sick of it." He looks back at her again, "Go_ on_, say it."

Maggie looks at him, eyeing him over before she speaks, "That pick—" she says, and looks at where his shirt would be concealing it. Daryl looks at her and then down to his chest, though he can't see the thing she means. "That's Beth's. Her friend Christian gave it to her on her sixteenth birthday; he was teaching her to play."

Listening, Daryl blinks, letting her do the talking. His countenance remains guarded. "_So?_" The look Maggie gives him tells him she's not going to explain herself any further than that — the implication is clear, and so is what she's after to find out. Still he looks at her from beneath furrowed brows with goaded bravado, "Whutch'ya gettin' at?" Maggie doesn't answer, and when she doesn't Daryl turns away from her, shrugging apathetically, "Ask her y'rself." He kicks open the door, "Lotta ch_a_win' 'bout a guit_a_r pick," he shoots off for good measure, then walks off, passing Carl who'd been in the hallway just beyond the kitchen.

Carl stands there, his eyes narrowing, silently watching Daryl's back descend down the hall.

* * *

_**Thank you for taking the time to read, I hope you stay with me; I definitely welcome concrit. Speaking of, is the writing dialogue in vernacular working or confusing? Can you already hear the twang in their voices? Is it **__**unnecessary? Thank you!**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**Thanks to everyone who is reading, especially those who have reviewed.**_

* * *

The roar of Daryl's motorcycle signals those on watch to rush and pull open the gates. He rides past, followed by the others in Glenn's car. Several people come down to the yard to welcome them back, Beth among them. Like the others she's smiling — regardless of the haul, it's a good run when each of them has returned in one piece.

For a sliver of time Carl flashes his eyes towards Beth's, then pushes past the crowd, disappearing on his own. Maggie climbs out of the backseat with her backpack and a box of goods.

Beth smiles at her, "Hi."

Maggie looks at her, blinks, smiles half way, then goes to find Glenn.

Daryl, still astride his bike observes this, and he watches Maggie walk away before turning his gaze back on Beth. She smiles at him, warmly, but hangs back behind the others, she does not move in any closer. Daryl squints at her a half crooked smile, then dismounts the motorcycle, slipping his bow off his back. As he passes by her his eyes fall on her for a brief moment, and though he never stops walking, his head ducks momentarily towards her and he grunts, "Think your sister's got questions."

... _Worn inside his poncho is an amber stone guitar pick Beth had given him a week or so before. Beth had drilled the whole herself in the prison workshop, and strung it on a strip of leather._

_She didn't actually _give_ it to him. Doing so would have only embarrassed him, and made it awkward for her, and probably forced into words what up until this point had been in no need of words. It is there, but in this quiet muted way that benefits from the absence of examination, or extra eyes, or reflection. It is enough to feel it — that pull. That like spiritedness. A balance._

_It is enough to know his eyes would be looking for her, even if she never looks up to confirm it. That he might wait for her to enter a room before leaving it, or maybe find a way to stand near wherever she is. Whatever it is between them, it is enough, and a strung guitar pick she'd never really gotten the chance to learn to play with, is enough for him to know, that at least for the present, he isn't alone._

_She'd left it with his gear, in between ragged shirts and torn pants, newly washed and folded. There'd been nothing with it, not a note, not a look, but there was no question who it could be from. No one but Beth would do it._

_She'd had the pick on her when the farm fell. It was a gift on her sixteenth birthday, a beautiful pick and a promise to teach her to play. She carried it with her as a pact with herself that she would learn, but now, with no guitar to play, it's changed from a tool of purpose to a relic of a former life._

_And it carries with it now a new promise. Sober and steadfast. But unspoken._

_Today was the first time the thing had been acknowledged between them, subtly, and wordless. Today was the first time anyone in the group had any inclination there was any tie between them; as it was, it may be that only Maggie saw it, but she did see something. ..._

Beth's large eyes follow him, "It wasn't meant as a secret."

* * *

Beth, with a Cormac McCarthy book Glenn'd picked up for her a few weeks ago, lies out on the grass in the yard with a bottle of water, trying to get some reading in between her chores and the August sun going down. Beside her on the blanket Judith plays with a rag doll. Beth turns the page.

Up the slope she sees Maggie approaching, but she drops her head back to her book, looking away from her sister, and the earful she's figuring is headed her way. Undeterred Maggie keeps on, and takes a seat beside them on the coarse blanket. "Hi," she smiles through the glaring sunlight. Beth doesn't say a word. She turns another page in her book. Maggie watches, holding her index finger out to the infant to grab. As Judith happily takes hold of the finger, grasping it and gnawing on it, Maggie looks to her sister then up to the clouds, "It's a pretty day." She's smiling at Beth, hoping she'll return the gesture.

"Don't."

Maggie doesn't pay this mind. "I think, Ah think maybe we've got something to talk about," she fishes.

Beth lifts her head blankly. "L_i_ke?"

Maggie had expected her guileless baby sister to be more forthcoming than this. "Like the pick. I s_a_w it."

"It's a guitar pick, M," Beth says plainly, shutting her eyes to feel the sun burn down on her skin.

Maggie squints at her, "You wanna talk about it?"

Beth shakes her head like Maggie's acting ridiculous, "It's a _guitar pick_."

Maggie nods to be agreeable, and the girls sit in silence, soaking up the sun. Maggie helps Judith stand, wobbling on her two little legs as she balances herself between Maggie's outstretched hands. "We should get her a hat," Maggie reflects, breaking the silence. "Or somethin'." She looks up into the sky, "Not a lot of shade."

"_Maggie_," Beth says, urging her to stop with the filler small talk.

Maggie looks at her. "Beth, are you serious about this?" Beth keeps her eyes on the baby, purposefully avoiding her older sister's looks. Maggie lets it drop again. She looks around the yard, at the browning tall summer grass, abuzz with insects large and small, at Rick's crops just starting to really produce, at the stream running, just beyond the fences, the clouds moving slowly through the still sky. "It's ni_a_ce out here," she says. "Pretty. If you look past the walkers. Ah almost forgot."

Beth looks at Maggie now, scooping the little girl into her arms as she does, "We can make a liafe here. We can make this home." She looks right at her sister, "That means more than jist keepin' the fences safe. It's got to."


	3. Chapter 3

In her room that night, looking up from her journal, Beth's eyes fall upon the goofy garden gnomes Daryl'd brought her. She's uncertain what it is about her that struck him with the thought that she might like these, but in the end, it turns out she actually does. They're reminders, ridiculous ones maybe, that people in the world once were able to do things like decorate their gardens with whimsical plaster figurines. The things themselves are stupid; the world they come from is not. And more than likely Daryl'd known she'd know that.

Beth thinks about Daryl Dixon, and the guitar pick, and what it means, and doesn't mean. She thinks about the day she'd followed him into the woods — the first time, maybe, in over more than a year, that the two of them were in a conversation of just the two of them, talking something other than survival, or Judith.

... ... ...

_Daryl stops when he hears a crunch in the foliage behind him, he turns quickly with his bow raised, then stops, it isn't a walker at all. "Girl, whut're ya doin' out here?" He lowers his bow and spits, "'Sides tryin' to git y'rself killed."_

_"I'h have my gun."_

_"Helluva lotta good it'll do you with an arrow through yur head." Daryl glances back to the prison then squints back at her, "Hershel know you're out here?"_

_Beth shakes her head. "Nope."_

_"Wull go on back," he waves her off, "ain't no reason f'r you to be out here."_

_"Yeah?" she questions. "What am I _s'posed_ to be doin'?"_

_"Not gittin' _bit_, or gittin' _shot_, for _one_," he __swings his arm at her. "Where's that little g_i_rl?"_

_"With Carol." Beth takes a step closer. "So, is that all I'm good for?"_

_Daryl glares at her, "You sayin' you don't love 'er? Li'l Ass Kicker? That baby _girl_?"_

_"I'__h do. I love her. But—" __Daryl slows down, he lets his muscles slacken a bit and he raises his squinted eyes to her and listens, "I—" now that he's actually listening she doesn't know exactly how to say what she's feeling — what it was that compelled her to go outside the fences this morning — and how not to say it in a way that'll sound stupid (or worse) to Daryl Dixon "— I'h__... __want somethin' more. Somethin' different."_

_"Yeah?" he grunts. "Like whut?"_

_"L_i_ke…" She almost doesn't know. And it isn't against Judith. Not at all. Somehow with the loss of Lori the primary care of Rick's baby had fallen to her, and she finds great pleasure in it. She loves Judith, and she likes having something sweet, and new, and undamaged as a constant in her life. And it's important to her to keep Judith as untouched by the ugliness and degradation surrounding them as much as possible. This trek outside the prison has nothing to do with that, but, she's eighteen now, and, there has to be something still new in her life, something more to be, or learn, than what her life's been so far. She looks at Daryl, "Like trackin'." She hadn't come there for that, it hadn't been her intention, or even really on her mind, but she said it, and when the words left her lips she did not regret it._

_Daryl nearly loses his mind to incredulity, "You fer real?"_

_"Yeah."_

_ Daryl Dixon looks at her... Yeah, Beth's mostly in the background, hanging back when there's clearing to do, but she can kill a walker, she doesn't scare. None of them do. That winter they'd spent on the road cured them of that. They react, they fight back, Beth too. She does all right at the fences. He's hardly seen her freeze up. Still his inclination is to refuse. "Uh uh," he shakes his head fervently. But he feels her watching him with adolescent expectation, and squinting up at her he yields fractionally, "Gotta ask your dad."_

_"He'll say 'no.'"_

_"Well," he wipes the sweat of his brow with his forearm, "that's his call."_

_"It's not fair." She doesn't say it like a child would, she says it in the manner that would compel people to listen, and maybe really see that it isn't fair. But fairness isn't chief in Daryl Dixon's concerns, and where family's concerned, he's approaching the issue from a drastically different vantage point than a child of Hershel Greene's would._

_"Beth," he pragmatizes gruffly, "a lotta things ain't fair; your people trying to keep you safe? That ain't one. Not even close."_

_And Beth just stands there. She hadn't expected him to say 'no'. She's quiet, and feeling a little cut down. She looks at him. "Fine." And she turns back toward the prison._

_"B-_e_th," he grunts. "Beth, hold up." Daryl shoulders his bow and tromps through the foliage to her. "Walk you back."_

_"I'm fine." Maybe she hadn't been clear on what she had been anticipating when she'd journeyed outside the prison, but Daryl's not usually this curt with her, and it's a little humbling to be sent back like a child._

_"Yeah, well, evr'rybody's fine, till they're not."_

_Beth stops and looks at him, "You shouldn't think about it that way."_

_Daryl cocks an eyebrow at her, then gestures his crossbow toward the prison to keep them moving. "Ain't no other way tuh think about it." They walk the rest of the way in silence. She crosses the foot bridge first and he follows, keeping his eyes active on the tree line at all times. When they reach the cut in the fence Beth undoes the chain link clamps and wire and he pulls back the fencing for her to slip through, but Daryl does not follow._

_"Aren't you comin'?"_

_Daryl's lips purse as he shakes his. "Naw, uh,uh. Ain't hardly started." Beth's large eyes blink at him, and she lets the fencing roll back in place and re-clamps and wires it tightly between them. She turns to head up the path to the guard tower, and as she walks Daryl calls after her, __"Greene," he commands with rugged authority, "don't be comin' out here again. We got those fences fer a reason. We fought for those fences." Beth looks at him, and blinks, and retreats._

_..._

_Early evening, having returned with a couple woodchucks and a coot, Daryl's cleaned the game, left it to Carol and Tyreese to cook, and, having rinsed himself off, heads into C block. There on the stairs, holding Judith, as so often she is, sits Beth. Daryl bites his lower lip and his head drops in some sideways form of abashed greeting. "Hey." He'd pulled rank__, or something like it,_ on her earlier and he's loathe to discover she's holding it against him.

_Beth looks up from the babbling baby. She smiles at him, the same Beth smile as always. "Hey."_

_Relief. Daryl leans back on his heels, not quite meeting her eyes, "Sorry. 'Bout b'fore."_

_Beth's head ducks, as she looks down at Judith who's squirming and playing with her hands, then once more she's smiling up at Daryl; her dimples deepen, "It's okay."_

_Daryl swallows a smile. Instead he moves forward and reaches out for the baby, scooping up Judith from her arms. He smiles at the little girl and bounces her in his arm before propping her up and holding her in one arm against his chest, "Hey Ass Kicker," he smiles. "How's it goin'?" he asks her. "Whut'd ya do t'day?" Beth watches him pace with and talk to the baby, it's sweet. Daryl's not like he is with Judith with anyone else. Judith may be Rick's daughter, and Beth's de facto responsibility, but she has a definite claim on Daryl Dixon. "Ya know," he says, returning at least a portion of his attention to the older of the two girls, "you're not useless, Beth."_

_Beth looks up at him, smiling wryly. "Thanks."_

_He smirks at himself, "My'be didn't come out right." The bowman sticks his tongue out in a grin at the baby who's trying to grasp at his bearded chin, as he speaks to Beth, never fully returning his attention to her, "The group don't think that 'bout you."_

_"That's…" she smiles appealingly, "_not_ what I'h thought. That's… not what I meant." Her mouth makes the shape of a prim, measured smile, and she looks up at him with large wide blue eyes. "I don't wahnt to be weak."_

_Daryl glances at her, he hadn't expected her to say that, to think that, "You ain't."_

_"Don't, Daryl," she says, and rises and takes the little girl back from him, leaving him for her room. Daryl watches her leave, regretting the loss of the small person he'd held in his arms, and her sweet baby smell._

_... ... ..._

It turned out he hadn't been patronizing her. Daryl doesn't do that. He may not lend word to every thought he has, but he never speaks what he doesn't own. There's a comfort in that. And something appealing.

And Daryl doesn't treat her like she' wounded, or fragile, or not up to par. That long ropey scar on her wrist, mostly covered now by bracelets, means nothing to him; his own is the only past that bothers Daryl Dixon. And to him she's not an afterthought. Even Maggie, these days with her new role in the group, and preoccupation with Glenn, does less talking _with_ her and more talking _to_ her.

There's more to Beth Greene than much of the group sees. And Beth may not know what Daryl sees when he sees her, but she is coming to feel seen under his glance. And so they talk more, in fits and starts, about Judith, about hunting. About food and runs; about the past _—_ leastways she does. They talk about nothing. Never for very long, sometimes just for moments, but the sum of their words, and of the space between them when they stand near, amount to much more _— _a thing of growing significance to her._  
_


	4. Chapter 4

It's two days later when they speak again. Daryl stayed the night out in the woods, traveling further out to find bigger game. The sun is high up when he returns.

Beth's out in the yard scrubbing laundry with Karen and Carol. Daryl saunters up, nods a smile at Carol, and passes by Beth, tugging on the end of her ponytail as he walks on, jerking his head for her to follow after. A few paces further Daryl stops and perches himself atop a half-full water drum.

Beth smiles at him, while behind them, Carol scoops up Judith from where she'd been sitting in the shade of a large cardboard box turned makeshift playhouse. Carol heads back to the cell blocks, leaving Karen alone at the scrub board.

"Hey," Daryl squints at Beth as she dries her hands on her jeans legs. "How's it goin'?"

Beth mops the sweat from her brow with her light gauzy sleeve, and he likes the view of her standing there in the beating sun, her blonde hair framing her flushed face with stray wisps of curls and strands. Beth smiles at him, just enough so her dimples appear, and looks back behind her at the washing, "Wishin' we could find some disposable diapers."

Daryl smirks and nods. "We try." He shrugs, "Ass Kicker blows through 'em faster 'n we can find 'em."

Beth's eyes roll, "Whutta you know about it? You ever change her?"

Daryl's eyes crinkle and narrow with a slight upturn at one corner of his mouth, like he knows he's gotten away with something. "M'bye not," he concedes. Beth returns this with a slight smile in spite of herself. Daryl looks away.

Evading her attention he looks up in the sky, then out into the tree line, her gaze follows. Beth's brow furrows in earnestness, "What's it l_i_ke out there?"

Daryl shifts his eyes to glance quickly at her. "Quiet." He scratches at his chin with his thumb, "Got three squirrels."

"That's somethin'," she responds, her small smile returning.

"You take a headcount round here lately? Ain't no damn three squirrels gonna make a dent. We gotta find some meat." Daryl grumbles, "God damned walkers getting all the game. If we were near a m_ar_sh we could get some gators. No g_a_tor's lettin' a walker get the jump on him."

Beth looks at him with her large sweet eyes, "Ah've never eaten alligator."

"Add th_a_t tuh the mile long list people 're doin' nowadays they ain't never done b'fore."

Beth's lips press together and her dimples deepen, "I guess so."

"Gator 's _good_," Daryl reflects. "Fry it up. B_ee_r. Nothin' like it."

"My mother," Beth smiles, "made the best fried chicken."

"_My _mother couldn't cook for shit. Damn collards an' beans. Burned ev'rythin' she tr_ie_d at." Then Daryl stops short, and mournfully shakes his head at himself, that was a poor choice of words. "_Shit_." His attention travels away from her and worry troubles the creases in his face.

Though she doesn't know the reason for it, the sudden change in Daryl isn't lost on her. Graciously Beth brings them back on subject, "The garden's comin' along."

"Last time I ch_e_cked," Daryl retorts, squinting into the sun, "I weren't no Yank vegan pansy ass."

"We're lucky to have it."

"Yeh," he acknowledges. "Ain't no reason to rest on our lau_rel_s."

Beth half smiles a laugh, "I like the way you talk."

Daryl's eyes shift directly to hers; something in him can't keep the look from becoming a glare. He swallows and ignores her. "Still, winter's c_o_min'." Beth looks to the sky as though there might be something there to confirm it. "We can't hunt n_ow_," he continues, mostly to himself, "in thuh s_ummer_, there's gonna be shit-all tuh f_i_nd in Feb'uary."

Beth cocks her head at him, "_Daryl._" He looks. Her smile sparkles. "Ah'm not hungry; 're _you_?"

Daryl glares at her, then scratches at his bottom lip with his thumb, a glint cracks in his eyes. "N_o._"

"So," she starts, "you gotta take that; fur n_ow_. You gotta let that be enough."

"You want me to rem_i_nd you of that when you're eatin' _i_cicle st_ew_?" Daryl's words come across gruffly, but he's smiling.

She smiling as well, but she looks back at the laundry behind them, "Ah should git back."

They both look back at Karen and the washing; Carol never returned. Daryl nods at her, "Git on."

Beth takes a step to leave, stops, smiles at him a bit unsure, then moves on, saying first to him, "Ah'm glad you're back."

Daryl blinks, and worries his lower lip. Then he swings his shoulder at her, breaking any meaningful look there may have been between them. "Go ahead al'ready."

* * *

_**Thank you for the constructive feedback! (Though I guess it'd be helpful to know exactly what's confusing...) I figured the dialect might be a little troubling / distracting, and I totally agree with Serena that Beth is educated, but there is a difference between regional dialects and non-stadard speech patterns. (i.e. having an accent has no bearing on one's level of education). I do feel E.K. plays her hard "i"s with that soft drawn out twang, but I'm definitely taking this under advisement and am so appreciative of such specific and helpful crit (!) I will go back and revisit. But effective or not, at least let's be clear it's not a case of unknowingly spelling things incorrectly **_**:) Take care all!**


	5. Chapter 5

The first night they spent together _—_ her sleeping with him in his bed _—_ it'd happened sort of by default. Neither one of them said anything about it. Neither one had planned it, exactly, or spoke the words or asked the question. They simply, waited each other out. Waited the night out, waited exhaustion out, keeping sleep at bay till they were essentially forced to fall asleep right there where they laid. Together. It seemed like there wasn't any other way for it to happen.

She was up in the perch with him, filing down quartz and flint into arrowheads with him. He'd set her to work at it not long after she'd approached him in the woods. With the help of the batteries they'd been collecting they'd powered the power tools in the shop, long enough to cut wood, blocks, and blocks, and blocks of long strips of wood. Enough to last. Enough to last the world ending two times over. From there Beth uses the hand drill to force the strips through a dowel maker, daily making shafts. With the power, it is easy work. There are arrow shafts for days now. It's the fletching, and the arrowheads that's taking time. But they've got time.

In reality they've got a production line there at the prison, ready to be put to use, but so far it's just him and Beth. She'd been looking for something more to do, this is what he came up with. And it put them together.

Sleepily Beth stops her filing and admires her work. Holding the quartz blade up against the candlelight it gleams warm and sparkling. "It's pretty."

Daryl keeps at his filing. "Ain't s'posed tuh be pretty."

She blinks, heavily. "But it is."

"Long as it's lethal."

Beth touches her finger to the tip. "It is. How," she yawns and rubs her eyes, "how fast does it go?"

"380 feet. Per second. Long 's the arrow's true."

Beth looks at him. Her eyes are heavy and dry. She pulls the blanket round her shoulders closer, and leans back against the wall. She watches him file, deftly, by rote. He could be doing it in his sleep. He nearly is.

They don't talk much. But they talk enough. And more than once their eyes catch, as they have been, now and then, for some time. And they stay up late letting the time slip past them, the hour growing later, as their bleary-eyes struggle to stay open. Yawns become catching, minds begins to droop. Words lag and drift, till there's no sense to be made from them.

Just as well, everything they say is just another form of "_You_." The _You_ they've been thinking for weeks, that's been pulling them together. The wordless unspoken _You_ that's kept them up this night.

Beth's eyes have grown too heavy. She looks at Daryl and finally just lays her head down, curling up and snugging into his bed. She already had his blanket around her shoulders, and it is so late, and she is so tired, and he is so close, it is so easy just to lie down. And because it is late, and the light is dim, and because she is already there, and no one else is there to see, and because ... because he wants to, _has_ been wanting to, Daryl lies down, too, beside her.

Though the immediate closeness to the other is stirring, lying there is enough. Being there, finally, so close, actually touching _— _not just momentarily — is enough. It's been years since Daryl's been this close to someone _—_ this close and still, this close and not in danger, or in pain. This close and safe.

They're so tired their inhibitions and reservations are long gone. Silently they've stayed awake together long enough to go to bed together. And it worked. Beth, barely conscious, tucks herself into the crooks of his arms, and without thinking Daryl pulls her in. Within minutes they're asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

When she wakes in the morning, still in his bed, the prison is already up. Daryl too. No doubt she's been missed. She should be up and feeding Judith by now. At the least she should be accounted for. Beth pulls off the blanket, stretches, and rises. She'd slept in her boots she realizes, and upon standing she wishes she hadn't.

Beth winces as the heals of her boots clatter and clang against each steel step she descends on the C Block stairs. "Shoot." She's not embarrassed, but she does not wish to draw such attention to herself. Not this morning.

"Mornin'," Sasha smiles at her.

"Mornin'."

"Your sister's got the baby."

"Okay."

"Others went on a run. Carol; Daryl."

"All right." Beth heads to the showers, and starts her day, with the knowledge this was the first time anyone ever thought to make a point of telling her Daryl's whereabouts. She likes the feeling it brings her.

* * *

Daryl and Carol have taken the truck out to the backside of the prison for a routine scouting check on the breach. Carol drives, while Daryl leans back in the passenger seat, his knee up, his elbow hanging out the window. His eyes shut and he lets the warm breeze rush over him. He speaks, but doesn't bother to open his eyes. "We got any t_a_pes? It's too q_ui_et."

"Truck's old; the tape deck ate the last one."

Daryl grouses, "I miss m_u_sic." He pivots his resting head toward her, "Don't you? Some Skynyrd, some Haggard, a little Hank Williams Jr." Carol snorts. "Whut?" He looks at her, smiling, "Whut?"

Carol shakes her head and smiles. "Nothing."

"'Ol' Daryl Dixon,' that's whut'ch you're th_i_nkin'," he points at her good naturedly. "'Redneck through 'n through.'"

"It's nothing." She veers quickly to avoid two walkers. "Ed liked Hank Williams."

"_Junior?_" Daryl cocks a brow at her.

"Mm,hm. Played 'im all the time."

"_Asshole_," he mutters. Carol only smiles.

She stops the truck and they climb out, weapons at the ready, stepping over rubble and bodies, killing what's easy to, counting the rest. When Daryl whistles the signal they head back to the truck and start the drive back.

"You happy?" Carol asks, looking at him from the corner of her eye as she drives.

"Exc_u_se me?"

"Are you happy?" she repeats.

"You're askin' me th_a_t? _Why_?"

Carol's patient expression is that of an amused older sister who's caught her brother in an utterly unnecessary lie. "Because of Beth," she answers evenly.

Daryl shoots her a look. "Ain't nothing."

"Slept in your bunk last night," she counters calmly. "Has to be something."

Daryl wipes at his nose. "Less than nothin' h_a_ppened."

"I know that," Carol nods. She glances at Daryl who in his discomfort is growing surly, "You've got a code."

"H_e_ll," his eyes roll and he looks back out the window.

"She's sweet," Carol reflects. "She'll be good for you." Daryl doesn't say anything. And Carol looks over to him, and touches her palm to his face; she keeps driving. "It's time for you to be happy."

* * *

Returned from prospecting, Carol and Daryl find Rick and Hershel, Sasha and Michonne, and Glenn and Maggie, and gather with them beneath the makeshift awning in the yard. "It's gettin' busy back there ag'in," Daryl says, unloading his bow on the outdoor table around which Rick and the others have gathered. "Think we better get a group out there t'day; stay ahead of it."

Karen passes Daryl a bowl of berries and oats, passing Carol the same. Daryl takes it, but ducking his head to take a bite he gets a reading off the group _—_ the energy is off slightly. He straightens, let's go the spoon, and eyes them. Keeping his distance, Daryl circles round, pacing round the other tables rather than pulling up a chair.

"How many?" Rick questions.

"Cup'le dozen," Daryl figures. "Give 'r take. We get out there now _—_ m'ybe five _—_ we can take 'em easy."

"Sure it wasn't _eighteen_?"

Daryl's head snaps in the direction of the tables. It was Glenn who had said it. Daryl's eyes narrow, "What's that _Glenn_?" Glenn's eyes are on his folded hands before him on the table. He isn't looking in Daryl's direction. "You_ say_ somethin,' little man?"

"_Hey!_" Maggie interjects.

Daryl looks from Glenn to Maggie and then back to Glenn. "You got somethin' tuh _say_? Any of y'all?" The group falls silent. Daryl sees eyes dropping, he sees Hershel look away, Rick gritting his jaw. "You got a p_ro_b'lem with me?" he challenges.

At first it seems like it will end there, that no one really is going to say anything more _—_ it's over. But then Glenn stands. "What are you doing with Beth?" His voice and temper are level as he asks, but there's an accusation somewhere lurking behind it all.

Daryl looks at him and the others fiercely, "You s_ay_in' someth_in_'? Whut you got tuh s_a_y to me, _Glenn_?"

Maggie watches Glenn keep his cool in the face of being snarled at. Glenn swallows and sees this through on behalf of his family, though he takes no pleasure in it. "I'm saying she's eighteen. And, and you're not."

Daryl's face screws up with disgust, _What is it they think happened?_ _Who is it they think he is?_ "_So?_" he spits. Glenn looks from Daryl to Maggie, who's steady eyes have remained on Daryl this whole time, and Daryl follows suit. "_You_ put him _u_p to this?" he throws at her.

"Leave her alone," Glenn says flatly in defense of his wife. Measuredly he looks Daryl in the eye. "I'm just looking out for my family."

Again Daryl shakes his head in disgust, "M_a_n, _see_, I'h thought we _was_ family."

"We are," Glenn nods. "We are. But, _—_"

"But _whut_?"

Glenn doesn't want to say it _—_ he loves Daryl _—_ but Beth's his kid sister. And, _this_, isn't right. He looks at Daryl, "You're in the wrong."

"_Hey_!" Daryl shouts, jumping at him. "M_a_n, you don't k_now_ _me_!" His arms swing aggressively and Rick rushes in between them, blocking Daryl's path. Daryl, still coming at him, despite Rick's interference, snarls, "You don't know _nothin_'! Get off my back!"

The group is on their feet, everyone there watching. Hershel in his muted silence looks sad, Glenn indignant, Maggie at a loss. Feeling their eyes on him, Daryl's affronted rage drains from him some, and Daryl surveys all their faces. Not finding what he sought, he shakes his head, spits, and heads off.


	7. Chapter 7

"_Daryl_!" Rick's heavy voice carries after him. Daryl stalks on. "_Dary_l!"

Daryl swings around fast, "_What_, R_i_ck? What ch'you w_a_nt? I didn't hear you sayin' nothin' back _there__—_" Daryl swings is arm in the direction they'd both come from "_—_ back at the t_a_bles! What's th' m_a_tter? Fin'ly find your t_o_ngue?"

Rick holds out his hands to calm him, "Whoa, Brother_—"_

"M_an, _don't be calling me th_a_t. Not after your little witch hunt back there."

"_Listen_," Rick hisses, demanding to be heard. Daryl's eyes shift as Rick leans in to him to speak. "Listen," he starts. Daryl is listening, but he's agitated and jumpy, and he isn't looking his friend in the eye. "N_ow__,__" _Rick soothes, "nobody's getting after you."

Daryl snorts. "Really? Don't think Ah made that _up_. I didn't risk my neck, a hundred times over, for this group, to be looked down on like scum on some redneck pond."

Rick shakes his head slowly, like he's soothing a wild animal. "No. You _didn't_. You didn't do if _for_ anythin." He keeps on speaking slowly. "You protected this group 'cause that's who you _are._" Rick nods his head. "We know that." Daryl's pacing is slowing, the color's fading from his face, and he's starting to listen. Rick leans straight into him, speaking directly to his face, "You l_i_ke her. Do I understand this?"

Daryl swallows, uses his thumb to scratch at his neck; he nods. "M,hm." It's a soft, gnarled noise he's made, barely an utterance, but backed by an unknowable depth of emotion. His eyes flick to Rick's.

"Well listen," Rick leans in fractionally closer, his voice straining with intensity, "be sure you know what you're about; it's not the easiest thing to see _—_ people will be upset. Hershel. Maybe."

Daryl chews on his bottom lip, his eyes fixed outward on the ground below him, "Nothin' h_a_ppened," he mutters. "Ain't no reason fur people to be gittin' upset."

Rick backs off a little, his fervency easing off, "Awl right..." he nods. "But I don't think this is about last night. It's more... in general."

"Didn't know I 's livin' with a bunch of g_o_ssips in pettic_oa_ts," he curses. "Ain't we got bigger things tuh worry 'bout? Good Lord."

"_Jest,_" Rick appeases, his eyes fixed on Daryl, "Be _smart_, about this." Daryl glares. "Just be sm_a_rt."

"Uh,huh," Daryl grunts, kicking his feet.

"No one's saying you're a bad guy," Rick repeats.

Daryl's body shifts, and his eyes lock on Rick's as he straightens up, "Uh,huh." And he's gone.


	8. Chapter 8

It's late, when Beth finds Daryl in the blown out guard's tower. His eyes are dark, his countenance is hard, and set. He's chewing on a twig and staring up at the stars.

"Hey," she smiles, pushing open the floor door.

Daryl rises and lends her a hand to climb up. "He_y,_" he mutters.

Beth looks at him with her lips pressed tightly together, her dimples barely visible. "Didn't see you today."

Daryl walks to the railing, leans out into the night air, warm, thick, and heavy, and alive with the whirring of crickets and cicadas. He watches the darkness, the moving shapes, the burning stars, the reflection of the moon in the creek. He shakes his head. "Naw."

Beth senses something's changed with him. She can't think it's got anything to do with them, as flimsy a 'them' as they are, but she doesn't try to find out. She joins him at the railing, and looks with him, out into the night. After some time Daryl looks at her, and blinks. More than anything he likes she isn't pressing on him to speak. He rubs his eyes.

"There was this _o_ne time_—_" he breaks the silence, beginning his story like he was somehow already in the thick of it "_—_ when Merle had been sick for d_a_ys. Had the measles." Daryl shakes his head. "Only kid we knew that year tuh git the measles. And he was laid up in our room for a w_ee_k. But M_e_rle, he don't stay in bed _—_ even when there's a girl in it; 'specially when there's a girl —" he smiles to himself. "Anyways, Merle's standin' up but he's deh_y_drated as hell, an' runin' a fever. He'd been lyin' in bed for three days. An' genius gets it in his head to climb the neighbors roof and split the cable. He 's tired of soaps an' kid's stuff, an' prob'ly hopin' to see some tail. Or some bl_oo_d. Only problem was, Merle didn't know whut the hell he was d_o_ing. Plus he was s_i_ck. He no sooner got up that roof as fell _o_ff it." He glances at Beth to register she's following this story — how she's receiving it. "Broke his leg in two pl_a_ces. Dumbass got himself shut up in that bed another couple days. Plus a cast over his rash." Beth listens, waiting to see if there's something more, something that's making him remember this story, something that's making him tell it to her now. "Ah dragged 'im all the way to the hospital in a damed rusted ol' R_a_dio Fyler. B_u_mped his stupid ass the whole way. Weren't no money for a cab. B_u_s wouldn't take us."

Beth looks at him; she blinks, "Where were your mom and d_a_d?"

"My m_o_m?" he says to her. "Workin, prob'ly. Coulda' been at her b_o_yfriend's fur all I know. She wasn't ar_ou_nd. She felt bad after, but she weren't th_er_e. M_er_le never forgave her."

"An'," she pauses, "your d_a_d?"

Daryl looks at her. "He was there. Settin' in the h_ou_se. Wasn't gonna be bothered with no broken leg. Not when there was beer in the fridge, and a game on TV." Daryl peers into the night, his eyes narrowed and fixed. "Called Merle a c_a_ndyass. Beat on me for bl_u_bberin'. Callin' me a cr_y_baby, cuz my big brother's leg 's turnin' blue." Daryl shakes his head, biting down on his twig. He exhales, pulls the twig from his mouth, snaps it, and chucks it to the ground below them. "Never can tell how people'll react."

Beth looks at him. There's nothing to say. The cicadas echo in the field, the sound is almost otherworldly. Daryl shakes his head at himself, and rubs hard at his face. Then Beth smiles at him, small and quiet.

"Come to bed, Daryl. Come to bed."


	9. Chapter 9

It's the next day on watch on the cat walk when Daryl looks up as a shadow blocks the sun. Squinting, shielding his eyes, he sees it's Hershel standing there, with gloomy eyes, his mouth set in a soft frown. "You know, son," he speaks gently, "she's very young_—_"

"Listen old man_—_" Daryl straightens, hurling out his unwarranted offense "_—_I _ai_n't your son." Daryl gestures off-handedly with his crossbow, "I ain't Gl_enn_."

"No," Hershel agrees somberly. "You're not."

"You're _point_?" He's not angry, he's the kicked dog, biting back before struck again. All this aside Daryl loves Hershel, he does regardless, but his back is bristling and he can't back himself down.

Hershel sighs and looks at him, his feeling doleful eyes are making Daryl uncomfortable, and he's working through it with aggressive impatience. Daryl's eyes roll, and he exhales, regrips his cross bow**,** and eventually looks back at the old man. But Hershel doesn't speak again till he's sure Daryl is listening. "I didn't like it. I don't think there's any secret in that." He pauses for impact. "She's too young for you. You're..." Daryl arches his eyebrows, challenging Hershel to finish that sentence. He doesn't. Hershel instead shakes his head. "Before the world ended I wouldn't have_—_"

"You wouldn't 've talked to me," Daryl cuts him off. "_Yeah_? _And_?"

"And I would have kept my girls far away." A hulking decaying walker trudges past the east fence. They pay it no notice.

"Look," Daryl grunts, "I _get it_. You think I'm trash, '_s that it_? It's _a_ll r_i_ght for me to do all they heavy liftin' but_—_"

"_Daryl_," the aged farmer interjects, "what I'm saying is: I guess I would've been wrong." Daryl flinches. There's a twinge in his eyes. He'd been all set against opposition; this turn has gotten the better of him. Hershel continues, graciously looking past the evident impact his words have had, "And things are so different now. What I'm sayin' is, you're a good man. You've done right by our group. Over and over." Hershel pauses and blinks. "We depend on you."

"'_But'_?" Daryl derisively masks his discomfort.

"But this isn't about that." Daryl looks at him, his eyes squinting in the sunlight. "I have my concerns," he says plainly. "I'm not sayin' they're about you." Hershel sighs, admitting, "I want Beth to be happy. There's not a lot of that left in this world." Daryl nods, mutely. "You know, I've lost two wives; first Maggie's mother to cancer, then Bethy's to, this... new cancer in the world. It broke my heart — both times — to lose my wives, but I've had two great loves. And, I can't see much in our survival if there's no room for that for young people in this new life we've been left in." Hershel peers intently at Daryl, "I want my girls to be happy."

Daryl takes some time to allow this to set in, then scratches the back of his head, "Yeh." He nods. "All right."

"So, I'm going to hold my judgment on this," he says. "She's eight_ee_n; she's grown up. She's had to. I'm not going to tell her 'no'." Daryl glances at him. "I don't want to know that wouldn't work." Hershel blinks. "So, I guess we'll see how it goes." He looks at Daryl. "I know you'll keep her safe."

"Would if things weren't this way too," Daryl mutters. He wouldn't have to like Beth to have her back. She's a part of the group, that's how it goes. You don't play favorites with life and death. You just don't. You get in, do what needs doing, and get yourself and your people home.

Hershel nods, "I know that." Daryl looks after all of them _—_ Judith, his girls, Carol, the Woodbury newcomers. He'd seen him out there working to find the girl Sophia last year. He had Glenn's back and Carl's and Rick's and his. Daryl Dixon didn't have to love his daughter for Hershel to know he'd be looking out for her. If Hershel would have judged Daryl in their former lives, at least he knows now he would've been wrong to.

Daryl looks at him, makes his peace with the old man, nods, and swings his bow round to his back. "Okay then."

Hershel nods too, "Okay."


	10. Chapter 10

"Hey, Girl." In the side yard of the prison, Daryl squints up through the bright sunlight at her.

Beth laughs a bright warm, sunshiny smile right back at him. It's so bright, and open, and so very _Beth,_ it's hard for him to sustain eye contact, and so down his head ducks, looking instead at his bike he's sitting on. But he can't break away that long, not while she's there beaming, presumably just for him, and so his eyes lift back up to hers, and the smile she's smiling deepens. And he looks at her, and thinks about that face, that cute, girlish face; it doesn't even seem for real.

"Hey."

Sitting there astride his bike, Daryl doesn't quite look like himself; he appears younger somehow, rendered so by a navy tee she'd freshly washed for him. She'd thought it would look good on him — it's not ripped up or torn for one thing — and she'd thought it would be soft, more comfortable in the summer heat than what he's got. The thing is old, and has been washed to supreme softness; whatever band logo runs across the front of it is now barely visible, but it isn't about the shirt — he could use it as a rag for all it really mattered — it's about _them_: Quiet. Soft. And there. She smiles again at him, at his bike, "You going out?"

Daryl squints at her, looking at where the light hits her on the slope of her slender neck. "Uh,uh, maintenance. Why?" He nods at her, "Whut're you doin'?"

Beth shakes her head, "Nothing."

"Not on watch?"

"Uh, uh."

Daryl's not sure what more to say to her, what more to say without saying too much — how to keep it going, but keep it them. Daryl can talk to anyone, that's never been a problem, and he can talk to girls — ain't no different than talking to anyone — but, he likes Beth, and he hasn't liked someone like Beth in a long time, maybe never. "You, wanna…" he scratches the small beard on his chin. "Wanna, go for a ride?"

Beth smiles at him, and looks at the bike, "On that?"

Daryl looks down at the bike, kind of like he's checking it hasn't changed into something else without him seeing, "Sure."

"That's not a waste of gas?"

"M'bye."

She smiles. "Jist, come walk with me. It's pretty today." Daryl arches his brow at her. "It'll be getting cold again, soon; heat's already burning off. We should enjoy it while we can."

Daryl looks at her, and spits to the side, "Words to live by." He nods. "Al'right." Beth takes a step backwards, inviting him with her eyes, in a manner close to taunting him, to follow and he ushers her off before him with a wave of his hand and a broken smile, "Git goin'."

Daryl smiles, shakes his head to himself, and dismounts the motorcycle and strides along side her, around the perimeter of the prison yard, down by the planting, down to Michonne's horse. Daryl swipes a stalk of tall grass and works the blade between his thumbs as they walk.

He whistles with the grass blade as Beth leans over the railing, calling the horse to her. She pets it's nose, speaks soothingly to it, and nuzzles her face in its neck. Daryl too pets the horse, patting his neck and clucking at him. "You ride?" she asks.

"Not much." He looks into the animal's large eyes, tenderly strokes his hand down its jaw. "That horse of your dad's threw me pretty hard."

"Oh," she laughs, "I forgot about that."

"Weren't funny," he grunts. "Got the sc_a_rs to prove it."

"I'h ride," she remarks serenely. "I d_i_d," she corrects. "Western and English. Jumping. I used to win ribbons."

Daryl eyes her, "Used tuh wonder who did that. All that," he wags his fingers, "prancin'."

"Me," she smiles, despite knowing he'd been slightly mocking her. "I was good. I's co-captain of the equestrian team. Would have made it to Nationals, maybe, if..." She swallows. And forces a smile... "I was good."

"I never seen you ride."

Beth shakes herself out of the past, and shrugs. "He's Michonne's horse." She adds, in case that's not enough, "They're never here for very long. 'Sides," she smiles a little, "Judith." Daryl nods, wondering if maybe there's more to it, but he wouldn't venture to guess what. "Ya know what?" she asks him, smiling at the horse she's stroking, instead of over at him.

Daryl glances at her, then looks back at the horse, letting it be the thing in common between them; his eyes do not return to her for some time. "Whut?"

She's nearly twinkling standing there, "You should kiss me."

Daryl keeps on looking at the horse, sneaking a sideways downward glance in her direction. "Yeh?"

"Mm,hm."

Daryl's getting ready to laugh it off, or chide at her, or walk away, but then her hand's in his. Just suddenly there in his, steady and sure. Suddenly that field is electric. _Who knew such a simple touch could light such a spark?_

Still he doesn't look at her, and she too carries on looking straight ahead — at the horse, at the crops, at the tall grass and wild flowers, but not at him. She knows what his face must be doing though — flinching in conflict.

"I don't m_i_nd," she says simply.

Daryl jerks and looks at her, "'M_i_nd' _what_?"

"Whatever you're thinkin' I will." Beth kisses the horse's nose, and smiles. "I know you, Daryl Dixon."

She couldn't have said it simpler, or sweeter. There's nothing more this girl could have said or done to tell him she's on his side. There's enough already, has been enough, for him to know it. It's the knowing though, that's hard.

Beth is his, quite literally for the taking, her hand already set in his, but, he does not kiss her. He doesn't know that he should. This girl can't know him, what he's done, how he lived. The world's changed, and him with it, but it didn't change everything. The old days, they're still there in him. No point in acting like they're not. And that's a big thing for her not to know.

So often Beth says something, that to anyone else would be _the_ thing to say, but always manages to flay Daryl Dixon. He isn't known, not really. Least not all of him. And he's second guessing himself. Again.

The age thing isn't it — if Glenn was his age and Maggie was Beth's it would be all right. So, it's not age that keeps him from kissing the girl who wants to be kissed by him. Maybe it's a part, but, it's something much more. It's _them_. What makes her what he wants is what makes him think he maybe shouldn't get it. He can't hang his hope on just one person.

It's hard to hold on to people in this world. Harder still to lose them. And they've lost so many already. Too many. Among them Sophia. Merle. Andrea. Almost Carol. When Rick lost Lori he nearly lost it all. Maybe it's better not to get that close. Beth Greene is so easy to hope with.

Would it hurt more to lose Beth than to walk away and keep things as they've been? He can't answer. And until he can he can't act. His expression clouds, and slowly Daryl shakes his head, "You don't kn_ow_ m_e_."

"I d_o_."

His eyes dart to her and away again. "Forget it," he mutters, dropping her hand. "We can't do this." He feels her eyes on him as he extracts himself from her, making an excuse to get away. "I got watch." Daryl leaves her, climbing the grassy slopes back to the yard, back to the cell blocks, back to the group that's been his family for three years.

* * *

_**AN: **__**Had a little trouble pulling this one together, may go back and revise...**_

_**If you're frustrated by that non kiss, so am I. **_**(**_**Yes, I know I wrote it.**_**)**_** I don't know why I shut them down like that. Sorry! Guess I had to live up to my "angst" descriptor. :-/ I really don't know that Daryl would fight it this hard, but since he's been so chaste, I didn't want the switch to be so easy. Anyways, please keep reading, it won't all be like this. Also, as you saw, I took some liberty with re-appropriating the 'last man standing' conversation from S4 "Still" to something similar offscreen at the prison. Obviously, I never have, never will, own anything of TWD. (save for my much beloved DVDs)**_


	11. Chapter 11

_SPLURGHHHHH!_

_SKRAASH!_

_SPLUDD!_

At the fences Daryl takes out walker after walker, thrusting his knife through the chain links over and over again. His grip on the hilt never lessens. He's been at it for some time.

"Hey. Daryl." Daryl, more than bloody by this point, turns immediately. It's Glenn, standing back, talking in that docile way he has. Daryl's right hand, his knife hand, is jumping at his side. The momentum of continual kill thrusts is still coursing through his tensed arm, but he takes a step back on his heels, moving back from the outer perimeter fence. "Think you've had enough?" Glenn asks. "You've, um, been out here a while."

Daryl looks at him, and at the fence. He shifts his weight and wipes at his brow. He shrugs his left shoulder, "They keep comin'; gotta keep on it."

Glenn takes a step forward, nodding with an amiable scoff. "That's true." He moves closer to the fence and pulls a gator machete from the fence supply and steps up. He nods at Daryl, who eyes him, then nods in return and both men go back to the clearing.

_SCLUDD! SHLURPSH! SKRAAASH!_

"You missed dinner," he says, glancing at Daryl before plunging his blade in the head of what's left of a mail carrier.

"Ain't h_u_ngry." They keep at it, driving their blades through.

"Well, Maggie made you a plate. It's waiting for you."

_WROKK! SVLAKK! SVASSH!_

"Can feed mys_e_lf. Been doin' it for y_ea_rs."

Glenn looks at him, and shakes his head in a little smirk. "That's a great 'thank you', Daryl."

Daryl holds back his knife and half smirks at Glenn, "This you two sayin' your s_o_rry?"

Glenn stops, steps back, and lowers his machete. He looks at Daryl, "We didn't mean to be assholes."

"Oh. _You didn't_?" Glenn cracks a smile at Daryl's deadpan accusatory facetiousness about what Glenn and Maggie did or didn't _'mean_'. "Well," he wipes his brow again, "ya know what they say," he spits dispassionatley from the side of his mouth, "road to good intentions 's paved with h_e_ll." He flashes Glenn a momentary grin, then retires his knife to his scabbard.

Glenn responds with the obligatory appreciative snort. "Really Daryl," he assuages, "we_—_"

"St_o_p."

"It's not _you_."

"Mm,hm."

"Well..." Glenn hesitates, not knowing what there is to say. He nods in the direction of the prison, "You coming?"

"You sure I'm _welcome_?" Daryl retorts dryly. "Won't be, messing up nobody's pl_a_ns?"

"Daryl," Glenn shakes his head tiredly. "You can't fault me for looking out Maggie's sister; she's family."

"News to me I'm the pr_o_blem," he retorts.

Glenn cocks his head to one side, "Just, come back with me. Eat something. Spend some time with the group. You're not helping yourself out here."

"Group's the one with the pr_o_blem," he points out.

"Just, come on." Glenn hangs his weapon back in place on the fence and heads back to the cell blocks. It takes him a minute, of standing cock-hipped on his own, thinking things over, before Daryl exhales, hitches his pants waist, and follows after.

...

In the common room alone Daryl sits on the steps shoveling through the meal Maggie'd set aside for him. The others have retired to their cells, or are in the showers, through the echos of the quiet tombs he can hear at least one running. The cell block flickers with the light of candles, flashlights and lanterns, and all is still.

He thinks about Maggie. And Glenn and Hershel. Carol, Sasha, Tyresse, Carl. The _group._ And Beth. Him being with her won't hurt the group. Fact. It'll only hurt 'em to the extent the group _believes_ it will. Daryl comes back to Glenn. Glenn loves Maggie, he's taken on her family. It hasn't made him vulnerable, it's made him stronger. Glenn would say it's worth the risk. Any risk. Even ending up alone. In his mind he considers_—_

There's a soft padding on the concrete coming from C Block. Daryl looks up.

"Oh." She startles and stops short at the gate across the room from him. "I, didn't see you. Didn't think anyone was out here." Beth smiles faintly. She's in her summer pajamas, her hair pulled up in a wispy ponytail. In her hand's a small head lamp and her book.

"Can't sleep?" The left side of his face crinkles as he speaks. Daryl wipes his hand on the knee of his pants, waiting to watch her move in lightly further into the room.

"Uh,uh."

Blinking at her, Daryl sets his bowl down beside him on the steps. "Gonna read?"

Beth looks at the book. "Maybe." She also looks at him, her eyes dropping down to his shirt, his arms, his face and his hands. "You're pretty disgustin'," she observes.

"I 's working the fence."

"I can see." She stands there, shifting her weight to one leg, flexing her toes on the cool concrete like a dancer.

Daryl holds her in his gaze for a little longer, then breaks off and looks away. His lower lip caught in his teeth, Daryl worries his fingers, touching each end to his thumb in turn. After a moment more he clears his throat. "Gonna wash up." He rises, sets his bowl in the wash bucket, pulls a flashlight from the selection on the shelf, and makes for the dark hallway, turning the corner to the showers.

Beth moves for one of the tables, but before she sits there's a light signal whistled from somewhere in the near darkness. She knows that whistle. Beth abandons her book and her headlamp and crosses lightly to the doorway. But does not pass through. She leans there against the open gate, remaining in the partially lit common room, so close to the unseen one who'd called her.

Daryl had had the intention of making it all the way to the showers, to remove the blood spattered clothes, stand under the icy shower water, and scrub off the blood and the grime. But another desire had taken hold. Walking away from her was no longer feasible; self-discispline has its limits. And so he stopped, and unarmed with the words or the moves, leaned back against the wall, just on the other side of where she is, and waits there in the dark, giving this, his desire for her, precedence over all else.

Pulses quicken. Though separated by a ninety-degree angle of cold cinderblock and concrete, the intensity of their proximity to one another is palpable. There is a longing there, deep and ardent, and very, very still. The two are motionless, leaning into one another, closer and closer, with the stone wall between them. Their breathing slows but their heart rates accelerate. Anticipation brings a rush of blood to their faces and ears; and their lips, ever so slightly parted, moistened and at the ready, wait. There is a fierce yearning for contact.

His forehead finds her first. Leaning in, his brow meets hers, just. Two pairs of eyes flutter shut, and all movement stops. The space between them is fractional, but deafening.

With great stealth his lips find hers in the shadows, traveling the impossible distance of less than an inch to get there. Reaching her, finally, Daryl holds her face to his, fiercely angling her to him, pressing himself so tightly against her. His tongue finds hers and Daryl, who for a split second may have been in danger of imploding, takes hold of her in his arms, so solid and steadfast, and kisses her, taking her on, taking the responsibility on. Letting her in, and keeping her close. Daryl kisses Beth, and she him, till they're short of breath; till their lips hurt from their fervency. It's not fear, or pain, or grief that's overtaken them this powerfully, and the sensation of that is so foreign it is daunting. Breaking away Daryl buries himself in the softness of her neck and the sweet smell of her hair.

_These past three years, the wretchedness, the terror… _Daryl shuts his eyes and breathes her in; thrills at the warm touch of her skin, her lips at his ear, her arms round his back.

This is how it felt when the group had found each other again, meeting up on the highway after the Greene farm fell. This is how it felt when they took the prison. How it felt when Judith survived her first day, and when he found Carol alive and not dead. But this is better. Because it does not stem from horror. Or tragedy. This is the embodiment of hope. And they hold on.

* * *

**_Walker killing onomatopoeias as they appear in Kirkman's comics. Again, NOT mine. _****:)**


	12. Chapter 12

_**Thanks to everyone who has read, followed or favorited, and especially to everyone who has taken the time to review and to give specific / thoughtful feedback and concrit; it means so much! (I hope I can keep going with this)**_

* * *

And that was it. Neither ever looked back. Being together is organic, almost innate; they take to it so easily. She is beside him when the group meets, he is near her in his spare moments. They are on each other's minds and in each other's inner lives. If one of them goes on a run, it is their face they look for first upon return. She eats when he eats. He sleeps where she sleeps. They talk quietly with one another, they sit together in the evenings. He sometimes in passing just touches her hair, and sometimes she'll reach out and take hold of his hand. They are not always together, and are mostly discrete, but their natural instinctual coupledom is evident to everyone in camp.

Those who don't care don't notice, and those who do care, tolerate it. 'Tolerate' is too strong a word. Not one among the group wishes either one to be alone, or unhappy, or is looking to position themselves to pass that kind of judgment, but in such close quarters, the redefinition of their dynamics is not as effortless to those who are not Beth Greene and Daryl Dixon. The group needs time to adjust, and to shift. It'll happen, they only have to give it time...

* * *

Glenn pulls off the highway onto the dirt road behind the thundering motorcycle. Daryl cuts his engine and the SUV parks behind them. In the morning Daryl, Glenn, and Carl had cleared a pantry in a rural community center; it was a decent haul, and now with daylight to spare they're heading into the woods to hunt. Daryl had been training Carl, figuring it's not smart for him to be the only one knowing how, but the lessons had come to an abrupt stop more than a month before.

Carl swings open the passenger door and lets it shut loudly behind him. "_Carl! Shhhh!_" Glenn warns him. Carl, gun in hand, stalks right past Daryl, narrowly missing running into his elbow as he balances his bike.

"Hey, K_i_d," Daryl calls after him, but Carl doesn't even pretend to acknowledge him. Watching after him, Daryl spits off to the side, "Suit yourself." It's been like this with him for weeks.

"_Carl_," Glenn says bringing up the rear, "stay close."

Daryl hops the roadside fence and trudges through the underbrush towards the wooded area beyond the road. He passes Carl, who turns back on him long enough to mutter a bitter accusation, "_Twenty-two._" After which Carl scrambles over a log and ducks under the branches of a great mossy tree.

Daryl turns round, squints, and arrow in hand cups his ear, "_Whut's that_?" He'd heard. Carl knows he heard, and glowers. Daryl smiles at himself for a second as he takes two strides back to the boy, forgetting for the moment the tracks he'd almost picked up.

Carl stops and confronts Daryl, leaning forward a little as he does, "You're older than her by _twenty - two - years_."

Maybe Carl hadn't actually seen something really happening between himself and Beth, at least not immediatley, but four years is all that separates them. _If four is insurmountable, what is twenty-two?_

Daryl looks him over; his eyes narrow as he considers a response. This isn't a competition. He nods soberly. "Yeh; something like it."

"It's disgusting," Carl sneers and spits on the ground. Even Carl himself knows he won't hate Daryl forever, and he knows he's going to have to get over this, but for the present he's indulging himself in self-righteous disdain for Daryl Dixon. He only came out with them today because there hadn't been a run for a while and he was growing anxious to get out and _do _something. And he wasn't going to be made to explain why he didn't want to go. So he's there, _brewing_.

"Listen little man," begrudgingly Carl meets Daryl's eyes; Daryl blinks at him, "all I can say is, it's not gonna change." Carl looks away and Daryl watches him for a second then drops it and heads back into the woods, scanning for any track that is not the dragging, halting print of a walker.

* * *

Daryl and Glenn pull into the prison yard drive and park. Daryl unstraddles his bike, slings off his crossbow, and surveys the faces. She isn't there. "B_e_th!" he calls out as he sets about unpacking his gear.

Rick steps forward, first taking Carl by the shoulders, inspecting him to see he's safe then slap shakes fraternally with Daryl. "Hey," he looks from Daryl to Carl, "how'd it go."

Daryl nods, "'S all right. Weren't much huntin'." They watch Carl walk obstinately away from them. "No problems."

"Good," Rick nods. "He handling himself?" he asks after his son.

"Mm,hm," Daryl confirms, absently scratching his lower lip with his thumb. "He's good."

Rick looks at him with an amused insider's smirk, "That so?" The reason for Carl's recent foul mood isn't lost on anyone; least of all his father.

Daryl shakes his head, straightening his lips agains a smirk, "Shut up."

The gate to Block C opens and Beth emerges and descends the steps toward the others. "Hi," she smiles slowly to Carl who's passing by her.

"Hey," he mumbles, only meeting her eye line for a moment before moving on and heading inside. Beth glances after him as she continues on further into the yard; there's little she can do about it, but she's sorry Carl's feeling this way. She's sorry he's feeling as though they're at odds.

Reaching the others her thoughts do not stay with Carl. "Hi," she smiles, to Rick and to Daryl, and to Glenn, who's behind her loading his arms with a box of supplies they'd brought back.

"Hey," Glenn nods at her with a smile. From right beside her Daryl watches her absently, his narrow eyes blinking in contentment just .

"I think she's on watch," the blonde tells her brother-in-law.

"I see her," he nods squinting into the sky toward the west tower. Glenn lays his hand on her shoulder as he passes and goes to sort and store the supplies and locate and kiss his wife.

"Hey," Daryl smiles at Beth, and pulls her into playful chokehold. "I'm back."

"I see," she giggles. Still caught in the crook of his arm Beth looks to Rick, "She's nappin'."

Rick nods at her, "Thank you." Rubbing his bearded jaw he looks at the two of them with an arched eyebrow, smiles minimally, then excuses himself. "Thank you," he says once more to Daryl.

Alone now Daryl gnaws at her face a little before fully releasing her from his hold. She smiles at him, then pushes him back lightly and pushes the hair back off her face. Beth walks with, taking the game to the kitchen, and with him skins it, cleans it, and cooks it.

* * *

_**The scene with Carl slamming the door and storming past Daryl was what started out as my opening scene to the whole story - it was also when I thought I'd be setting the story back on the road (remember I started this before the end of the S3 finale, I wasn't sure they'd be staying at the prison). Anyway, I repurposed this scene, hopefully it works well enough, I know there wasn't an awful lot to this chapter.**_

_*** Changed the age difference slightly from 25 to 22, the least I personally can realistically see it being is 21. The age difference between the actors is 16, but we all know E.K.'s older than her character - her age is stated (sorry, I know I'm not saying anything viewers don't already know, you all know this). I came to the original '25' by shaving two years off of N.R. but I went back and shaved off five, making him 38 at the start and 40 now when she is 18.**_


	13. Chapter 13

Beth is on a quilt on the floor in the common room with Judith and a Xylophone Michonne had brought back once from a run. They lie together, striking the tiles, tapping out a tune. Judith giggles, then so does Beth. There's the clanking and screeching above as the steel door on the second level opens from the outside and Carl enters from the catwalk. The two girls watch as he descends the long walkway and staircase down to them. "Hi," she smiles as he gets closer.

"Hey," he nods to her. "Hey, Judith."

Beth smiles up at him, "Wanna play?" Carl looks at Beth and at his little sister. He maybe likes them best — and Michonne — of everyone in the prison, but it might take too much for him to take off his gun and sit on a quilt and play a little music. "You have that harmonica still?" Beth looks at Carl, and smiles; she smiles with her eyes wide and her dimples pronounced. Beth knows which smile she's giving him — it's a smile with rainbows in it, and sining birds, and darling baby sisters just learning to make music. It's a smile meant to reassure, and stabilize, and one that promises things can still be good. Her father wasn't the only one who had seen him execute that boy. He had been a kid, out there in the woods on his own. Just a kid, probably close to her age; and Carl had shot him. Without passion.

_But Carl is a kid too. He can come back from this._

Like Rick says: there can be a coming back.

But, a person has to have help. Carl has help; he has Rick, and Michonne, and her dad. And there's Carol, and, everyone, really. But most of them hadn't been there. They hadn't seen. And all of them had had a childhood. One in which, despite any other dangers and miseries they faced, did not include the dead rising and feeding on the living, nor the living battling in such ways to be the last ones standing. Few of the other kids they've taken in have spent much time on the road. The certainly hadn't killed any walkers, or anyone they once knew. In that Carl's alone. In so many ways he is alone.

Beth, she is not Carl's parent — nothing close — but, he needs to be looked after, and shown a different way. He needs a person who's lost a parent, who nearly lost another, who's been on the road, who's seen what he's seen, who's lost what he's lost. He needs to be shown, that a person can be hard, without becoming cold. Judith is important in this. Judith and herself.

Beth feels as though a lot of what's still a child about Carl is tied up in the crush he used to have on her. She, at least, can still make him blush. A blush is not a grimace or a scowl or a glassy untouched countenance. It's a little thing, but it's something. And if she can help him with little things — playing with his sister, making a little music, talking about a cloud — little things that can bring him back, well then that can be her job too.

Standing there aside them, Carl's thinking about joining, about what it will cost. Finally he does squat down to his sister, and taking the mallet from her baby hands he lets it dangle from his own while he continues to think. It is not an easy thing, playing the role of a child when a person is not one, even though he may very much still look the part.

"Go ahead," she smiles and nods reserved encouragement.

He looks at her—

"Hey," Daryl enters from outside, amiable and unaware he's interrupting anything. Beth sits up, Carl rises, and the baby claps. "How's Lil' Ass Kicker?"

Beth looks from the interrupted boy, who's just closed off just fractionally more, to the smiling happy baby. "She's good."

"Yeah?" Daryl says, pouring water on a handkerchief to wash his hands and cool his face. "Le's see," and he crosses to the quilt and lifts the baby, throwing her up in his arms in one fluid motion. Carl takes a step back and Beth, at least temporarily relieved from watching Judith, crosses the room to refill hers and Judith's water cups and to stretch her legs. She remains there at the far end of the room letting the other three interact as they may.

Daryl, continuously adjusting the placement of his head and chin in relation to the tiny hands that reach and grasp at his jaw and beard, makes idle conversation with Carl, "You think she'll walk soon?"

Carl looks at his sister then at Daryl. He shrugs.

"When do babies w_a_lk?" Daryl looks to Carl then over his shoulder to Beth.

"I think," she says, "the book said at about nine months, or twelve. Or maybe later. Daddy says it's always different. Maggie walked at ten months," she smiles. "I waited till I was more than a year. Took my first steps at the Easter picnic." She looks at Carl, "When did you first walk?"

Carl blinks, and his head shakes imperceptibly. "I don't remember." If she's not misreading him, he looks sad behind that impenetrable front he's been wearing.

"Well," Beth covers brightly, "ask your dad; he'll know."

"No, he won't."

Beth swallows, and glances to Daryl for help. "Don't say that," Daryl grunts with a face. "I never seen a dad love his son more 'n yours does you."

"He'll know," Beth affirms, crossing back to them and standing beside Daryl and the baby, feeling better equipped to combat Carl's recently cultivated innate cynicism with Daryl's authority there as support.

"It doesn't matter."

"It _does_ matter," she insists.

"Whatever." Carl shakes his head and adjusts his holster, moving to walk away while Daryl, still holding the squirming cooing baby at his side looks at Carl like, like he doesn't know what to make of him. Daryl understands Carl, and feels badly for him, but there's something inside Carl Daryl doesn't recognize.

Carl feels the two of them looking at him, in tandem. He can't abide it, and he looks for a way to explode the moment — get them to stop looking at and thinking on him, to get them off the same team. He wants to get them off of looking at him that way. "He's old enough to be your father," he mutters.

"C_ar_l," Daryl gestures in mild irritation, "what the h_e_ll?"

"It's true."

"Do I look like an old man with a ponytail?" The remark was made with the intention of maybe getting Carl to break, to crack the sliver of a smile — to shake off whatever's eating at him — but in that Daryl is unsuccessful. Carl is utterly disenchanted. He just exhales, shakes his head, and glowers from beneath his furrowed priggish brows.

Beth's eyes blink twice as she looks at him soberly. "Carl…" She speaks to him slowly, like the kid in front of her might not be the kid she's known for going on three years; like this person in front of her is something she doesn't recognize how to approach. Like she needs to get him to remember something about himself. Her lips pressed pensively together, she takes a slow step toward him.

"Don't," he insists. "Just," he breathes, "don't."

Daryl shouldn't be there; he didn't lose his childhood, his entire future, to this broken world. If he's hard, he was already that way. If anything, time has softened Daryl Dixon. Not so with Carl Grimes. With three fingers Beth turns and pushes Daryl back from her. Stoic, he watches her turn back and step closer to Carl, and he deliberates, cracking the knuckles on his right hand, then, with Judith still with him, walks away, leaving the teenagers on their on.

Beth's steady eyes never leave Carl, and she says to him when they're alone, "You don't need to be angry."

Carl jams his hands in his pockets and struggles to meet her eyes. "I'm not."

Sweetly Beth smiles. "Yeah you are." She looks at him. "You're okay Carl. You _a_re. We all are. We're s_a_fe."

"You can never know that." Beth starts to counter but he cuts her off, "How many times have we thought we were safe? We're n_e_ver safe." His voice is grave, and somewhat aged. Much more so than hers.

"You can't th_i_nk that. Your d_a_d—"

"He wants us to be safe," he nods. "I know. It's just that, we're not. We're just not. Not for long."

"You're safe today. R_i_ght now. Yesterday. And the day before."

"_Tomorrow_?" The look he's giving her is a direct challenge to prove him wrong, only Beth sees all of it differently.

"You can't do anythin' about tomorrow. We never could. It c_o_mes, and we surv_i_ve. You can't not forgive the future for what it hasn't done yet." Carl's face screws up at her in confusion. "There has to be some '_now_'. Some…" and she smiles and her eyes lift as she tries to think of things for him, "comic books. And candy. And horses. And baby sisters. And family. And, friends." Carl blinks. "_I_'m your friend." Still smiling she takes a few backwards steps and sears herself on a metallic table bench, and so perched jerks her head at him. Taking the cue Carl sighs and claims his place on the tabletop beside her. Beth nudges him with her elbow, "You're my friend, r_i_ght?"

There is a space between her words and his answer, but Carl does answer. "Course."

"I thought so." Carl nods to himself and stares off across the floor into the distance. Beth adds, now that Carl seems a little more himself — a little more recognizable, a little more like he can handle a playful telling of the truth, "You haven't been 'xactly friendly…"

"To _you_?"

"Whom do you th_i_nk?" There's the edge of truth in what she says, but she puts it to him sweetly; reaching Carl won't be done through confrontation. He's fourteen, and a seasoned fourteen at that, but he's also still a kid. And he can emote like a kid; she's seen it.

"I, I don't think you should be with him."

"Ye_a_h," she smiles, "I got that." And Beth laughs conspiratorially with him, "Ev'ryone can hear you stompin' through the halls." Carl swallows to ward off his shame and Beth's mouth abandons the smile and her lips purse with earnestness. "But, you're wr_o_ng."

"I'm not saying he's a bad guy," Carl hedges, his right brow raised at her.

Beth nods, "I know."

"... It's just that…"

She waits to allow him to finish, but he says nothing more. "We're still friends," she says, then smiles knowingly, "I _know_," she nods, "that s_ou_nds awful. 'Friends' can really suck," she kicks her legs, "when you hear it like this."

"It doesn't suck."

"No," she confirms; "it doesn't." They sit there. Then again she nudges his leg and looks up at him with that prim dimpled smile, "You're not helpin' anybody. Being angry. You know that." He looks at his feet, and to himself, slowly, Carl nods. "Carl—"

"Tell me the truth," he asks her, lifting his head, "would you have thought about this — with h_i_m? _Before_?"

Beth has no answer but to look at him plainly. "Name one thing we do now we would have done before." She looks at Carl, who's still waiting. "No," she tells him. "Probably not. … Definitely." She bites her lips, and rolls her feet out onto their sides. "But, what does that matter? We're living in _now_." She brushes her hair back behind her ear, "Age? It's just stopped matterin'. Like you, goin' on runs, takin' watch shifts." Beth smiles faintly. "You're r_i_ght," she tells him, "this life changes us, but, that doesn't have to be b_a_d. You can grow stronger." She wonders if maybe she mightn't have said that bit to him. Carl already sees himself as strong. She regroups and flashes a smile at him. "You wanna know a good thing?"

"… Whut?"

"You've got t_i_me." Her expression glitters. "In here," her smiling blue eyes flit to different corners of the prison. "We've got time. You can be happy. _You_." She looks at him. "I promise."

"Don't promise."

"You can be happy _today_. You just have to choose it."

* * *

_**I just wrote this today – it was originally just another scene of Carl confronting Daryl and Beth, but although I liked it in itself, within the story arc it seemed a little redundant and maybe unwarranted, so I built in a little context and made it about more than just Beth and Daryl. I hope it works all right (but I really don't want to devalue the work that Hershel and Rick put into Carl during and prior to season 4). I have a couple more scenes written out with the same problem – lots of individual's characters' reactions to Beth and Daryl, but stringing them together seems to make the thing way too big of a deal for a group of people who are in life and death situations every day. I don't want **_**TWD**_** to become high school, even just in my ff **_**:D**_** I started this story as a way to show how they would get together, with the opinion that once they were the show and their lives would carry on much as they had before – where and with whom they sleep may change off screen - but Daryl Dixon would still very much be Daryl Dixon (to the extent that a little bit of that damage he carries with him being shed will allow him to be), and Beth Greene will very much be Beth Greene. In other words, now that I've written them there, this might be about it... or at least time for a hiatus shortly. Thanks for reading!**_


	14. Chapter 14

Over the months since the Governor, the prison had become more than a place that keeps them safe, it's _home_. They've made makeshift furniture and also brought some pieces in, also linens, and clothes, and little creature comforts. Bit by bit, run by run, the prison has transformed from the place in which they were surviving to the place where they are thriving. Food is not in abundance but the crops are starting to produce and it has been a long time since anyone went to sleep hungry. Beth is keeping track; not, just of the days without an accident, not just of the new faces and new names that occasionally come in to join them, but of triumphs and milestones, as small as they might be: When Judith started eating food, when Glenn found her father a prosthetic leg, when Sasha, Tyreese, and Maggie brought back what seemed to the group almost an entire library. There was the time when they got art supplies for the kids, and just the having of second tier necessities like soap, and sunscreen, and sunglasses and winter coats and hats. And extra pillows, and toothpaste. Though, although there are curtains and towels — little things from the old world, when put together — no matter how completely — they never trick anyone into feeling they are still living that old life. There might have been a time when that would have happened, but not now. Not after the Governor.

The walls, the beds, the gardens, the showers, the rationed (but _there_) electricity, never take anyone into a lapse of sense memory. But it is a life. One worth protecting, and one worth living.

Clean teeth and UV protected skin do not make up for the loss and the horror, but it can make the difference on the days when it is hard to find a reason to keep going. Everyone has those days — though nobody speaks of them — even behind the prison walls, but most days you just go about your tasks; there are things that need doing, and that's it. Even Daryl had eventually claimed a cell, though some nights he still slept out on the perch, until Beth.

And there she stands, smiling faintly in the doorway of his cell, "Hey."

Daryl looks up from where he lies on the bed, "Where you been, Girl?"

She watches him lying there, "They said you're leg's broken."

"Shows how much people know," Daryl grunts. "Ain't broken it's sprained." He's laid out with his leg elevated by pillows and clothing. It happened outside the fence. Something on a run gone bad, she'd just heard.

"It's his knee," Tyreese fills in. "Bone may be bruised. No way to tell. Your pop says there's not much to do; he's getting his kit."

"It's f_ine_," Daryl barks. "Quit fussin'."

Tyreese turns on Daryl who's trying Tyreese's patience with his unabating surliness. "You _could_ have a concussion. Probably won't walk for days."

"I'll _walk_," Daryl counters. "_Hell_, I'll walk r_i_ght n_ow_. _Her_shel's got one leg; gimme a crutch, I'll show you how mobile _I_ am."

"_Dixon,_" Tyreese commands, "relax."

Moving into the room Beth looks from one to the other, "So, what happened?"

"Some piping got the jump on me." Daryl doesn't particularly feel like giving a play by play, the damage speaks for itself.

"Water damage," Tyreese adds. "Ceiling damn near collapsed. Pipes came right down on him." He glances back at Daryl, "Lucky he's alive."

"Ain't goin' out from no damn pipe," he grumbles, and looks away when he catches Beth watching him. He doesn't want that, so he gripes to distract her, "M'bye someone should tape this thing up. Or," he gestures roughly, "bring m_e_ the tape, I'll do it mys_e_lf."

"I'll get it," Tyreese nods. Moving past Beth who's still in the doorway, he says to her, "Stay with him, he's got a concussion, I don't know how bad. Don't think he should sleep."

"'_Sleep?'_" Daryl balks. "It's the middle of the day. I don't need n_o_ b_a_bysitter."

"Just stay awake," Tyresse calls behind him, heading down the stairs to find Hershel and the bandages and tape.

Left alone Beth looks at him, and he in turn squints up at her beneath arched brows and looks. "You need anythin'?"

"Got some _ice_?" he facetiously asks. "This water bag's not doin' me any favors." Daryl adjusts the ziplock bag of creek water that's been set on his knee, the best thing they have to bring the swelling down.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't here." Daryl scrunches his nose at her, he doesn't care about that shit. He doesn't need her there waiting at the gates for him. She's there now. Standing there, cautious, examining him from across the room several yards away. "Your head hurt?"

He looks at her. He thought he'd hate having her worry over him, but she isn't crying or wringing her hands. She isn't overreacting, or fixating on the _what-ifs_. He appreciates that in her — a pragmatism all her own, such that none would expect to find it, hid behind that cherub face and soft little voice. "Had worse," he answers, in his gritty closed-off way. Beth nods.

Truth is, if Ty hadn't been there to lift those pipes, things could have turned out differently; Michonne, or Maggie, even Glenn might not have gotten him out. But he was there, and Daryl made it back, not too much worse for the wear. And now today's just one more day of hundreds of close calls. Not even that close, the walkers didn't outnumber them by a whole lot, it was the ceiling mostly. And he's glad; glad to be back, alive and breathing, at least for one night more with her, soft in his arms, small against his side, sweet and fresh and his, for as much as he will take — "Come in if you're gonna," he grunts — which still to this point amounts to mostly kisses. (He hasn't sought or accepted more.) Daryl watches her take one step closer. "Don't b_i_te."

"I'm not afraid."

"Whut_e_ver," he shrugs, as best he can. "You're pretty far away over there."

"You hungry?"

Daryl shakes his head. "Sit'dwn." Her eyes flutter down to his leg, and he watches her cross the small space and take the spot on the floor beside his bed; she sees no easy way to get beside him on the bed. "Ain't gonna break."

Beth just raises her hand to his shoulder and holds it there. Daryl breathes, his chest slowly rising and falling as he allows his body to relax.

Beth picks at the frayed ends of his horse blanket. They sit. "I saw a hawk today," she shares, breaking the silence. His brow cocks in interest. "Swooping up, glidin' on the air." There's a smile on her lips as she recalls it. "Beautiful."

"Gettin' to the point," he rubs sweat and dirt out of his eye, "nearly ev'ry big bird 'ya see's a buzzard." He adjusts his leg, "Peckin' at the dead, followin' the livin'. Hawk's a raptor — dangerous — but..." he drifts off in thought, "'s elegant."

"Majestic," she contributes.

"Mm,hm… V_u_lture's just a big dumb b_i_rd. Can't take care of itself 'cept for scroungin'."

"_We're_ scroungin'," she says, her dimples deepening like they do when she makes a point.

"Uh, uh," he shakes his head. "We're the h_a_wk. We're l_i_vin'."

Beth reaches and finds his hand, she squeezes it. He's fine. In a little time Daryl will be fine. And while he recuperates he'll have the prison to do it in. Despite how she may have expressed it that day in the woods with him, Beth does not resent the presence of the prison fences. She loves them. Loves them like she never knew she could love a fence. They have kept them safe. They are what's allowing Judith to grow up, and gave her father the space and time to recover. They've given them farmland and room to breathe in. The fences are what makes them safe and keep them going. They're everything.

…

The night is passing. Tyresse, who'd played college football at Tulane, had wrapped Daryl's knee and Hershel'd stopped in to monitor his eyes several times for signs of a concussion. People had been in and out of the room all day, bringing him food, water, an extra pillow. Carol had sat with him for a long time, and Rick. Carl'd brought Ass Kicker. But the day had grown late, and now, judging from the position of the stars, and the moon, shining down through C Block's tall windows, he's guessing it's nearing midnight. The prison has been long asleep, the sound of snoring echoes from several cells, and the only two awake are Beth and Daryl. He's not allowed to sleep, or can't sleep, and either way she's up watching the night with him, now beside him in the bunk.

In the dim light Daryl takes her hand. She watches his fingers close in around hers. "I'm glad you're _sa_fe," she says. "I'm glad you're all r_i_ght."

"I'm _fine_," he declares.

"Good," she smiles. And she lifts his hand in hers, raising it, calloused and rough, to her lips and softly she kisses his knuckles. Daryl blinks as he watches, then looks away as her eyes flutter up to his. She's his, she knows, and he hers, as much as he'll ever be anyone's, but still in quiet moments between them Daryl takes respites, not taking her on all at once. But she'll take Daryl Dixon as he comes to her, and Beth snugs up against him, resting with him, the surly, scruffy, volatile bowman who's proved himself the steadiest of the group, against two pillows, a converted horse blanket, and the cinderblock prison wall. Keeping coming comes easy to these two, though conversation can be exhausted. It's late, his knee is badly swollen, and there are no more words to say. Softly Beth sings, her eyes drifting up to his from time to time as she does, checking that he's with her, and she isn't on her own.

_Well this is just a simple song,_

Her dimples appear as she starts in on her nocturne.

_To say what you done_

She looks at him with a sweet smile; on the surface he's stoic and unmoved, but there's more to him than his surface.

_I told you 'bout all those fears,_

_And away they did run._

_You sure must be strong,_

_And you feel like an ocean_

_Being warmed by the sun._

_When I was just nine years old,_

_I swear that I dreamt_

_Your face on a football field_

_And a kiss that I kept_

_Under my vest,_

Beth smiles while drawing in her breath,

_Apart from everything,_

_But the heart in my chest._

_I know that things can really get rough,_

_When you go it alone._

_Don't go thinking you gotta be tough_

_And bleed like a stone;_

_Could be there's nothing else in our lives_

_So critical, as this little home._

_My life in an upturned boat,_

_Marooned on a cliff_

_You brought me a great big flood,_

_And you gave me a lift,_

_Yeah,_ what_ a gift._

Again she smiles, but continues quickly on as the song beats on:

_Well you tell me with your tongue,_

_And your breath was in my lungs,_

_And we float over the rift._

Daryl blinks; he can only keep his eyes on her for brief moments of time. It is too much to take in otherwise, too much to hold within himself. He never was good at looking at people. Daryl _sees_ everything, he's observant as hell, but _looking, _it's hard, it leaves him feeling open. Because, if his eyes open to see, if his mouth is unclenched and allowed to smile, somebody else might be looking into him. Beth sings on, she's singing for him, but not to him — he doesn't have to look at her.

_I know that things can really get rough,_

_When you go it alone._

_Don't go thinking you gotta be tough,_

_And bleed like a stone;_

_Could be there's nothing else in our lives,_

_So critical, as this little home._

Absently he touches his hand to his chest, touches his rough fingers to the cool stone, strung there for him by her...

_Well this will be a simple song,_

_To say what you've done:_

_I told you 'bout all those fears,_

_And away they did run;_

_You sure must be strong,_

_And you feel like an ocean,_

_Being warmed by the sun._

_Remember walking a mile to your house,_

_Aglow in the dark,_

_I made a fumblin' play for your heart,_

_And the act struck a spark._

_You wore a charm on the chain that I stole,_

_Especially for you._

_Love's such a delicate thing that we do,_

_With nothing to prove,_

_Which I never knew_

In the silence that follows Daryl looks at her, and blinks. Then, ever so slightly, nods his chin at her, calling her to him. Beth moves in, her parted ready lips just whispers from him, and he kisses her, holding her to him by her golden halo of hair.

* * *

**_AN: Song is The Shin's "Simple Song" from _Port of Morrow_, 2012. Now most likely James Mercer and co were not recording after the zombie apocalypse, but the show itself used Waxahatchee's 2012 song "Be Good." Sorry for posting the entire song (that's usually a pet peeve of mine), but there was nothing in this scene to interrupt her, and I wanted to convey the span of time they spend together, close, but without actual conversation._**


	15. Chapter 15

Maggie finds Beth where she stands hanging laundry out to dry in the yard. Beth sees her approaching, smiles, and returns to her task — she makes no effort to stop and begin a conversation with her older sister. Maggie stands there by the line pole watching her sister, squinting at her in the sunlight. "Hi," she says.

Again Beth looks at her and gives her a small smile, but she knows Maggie's come there to talk to her, and she knows what about, and she's decided she's not going to make it easier for her. Instead Beth grabs two more clothes pins from her back pocket and presses on. "You could help," is all she says.

Maggie looks at her, then bends down to the basket and pulls out a sheet to hang. Beth hurries to catch hold the other end before it falls loose onto the dirt. As they lift the sheet over the line and pin it several times, Maggie speaks again, looking over at her sister in the early morning heat,"How are you?"

Beth gives her sister a look to tell her she's ridiculous. "Ah'm f_i_ne," she answers, and turns once again to the laundry basket of damp clothes and linens. "_Maggie_," she says flatly, "go ahead and say it."

"_Beth_," Maggie patronizes warmly. "There is no 'it' to say."

"All right," Beth allows, speaking the words around the pin in her mouth. "But when was the last time you helped me with the washing?"

Maggie can't not concede this point, she hasn't done the laundry or a bulk of the cooking in months. "Beth," she says with a little sigh, "it isn't—" She stops, and starts again. "I like Daryl."

"Ehv'rybody likes Daryl," Beth answers lightly. There's a strategic airiness to her reply. Beth always could play her audiences how she pleased.

But Maggie looks past the naive gamine front and looks solidly at her sister, "Beth, I just, I don't want you to disappear."

Beth looks at her sister; Maggie's sincere in her expression and it gives Beth pause. "What do you mean?"

"Daryl," Maggie begins, "'s always off on the sidelines; a key member of the group, but, also not completely part of it. And Beth? When you're with him?" Beth's eyes flash to her sisters,' wide with listening to what is being said, "You're outside too. It's like _he _draws you out, instead of _you_ bringin' him in."

"Maggie," Beth begins her protestation, but Maggie cuts her off, a rebuttal isn't necessary.

"Look," she says fondly, "awl Ah'm sayin' is, we miss you; me an' Glenn. Daddy. Bethy—" Beth's eyes roll the way all little sisters' do when she's being infantilized but in that loving way that makes a person feel safe, and protected "—be happy. Of course be happy. But, don't go away. Don't disappear."

Beth, somewhat taken aback Maggie would ever feel compelled to say this to her, shakes her head softly at her sister and smiles, "I'm not going anywhere."

Maggie smiles at her through the warm sunshine and steps forward and kisses the top of Beth's blonde head, "Good." She turns to head back to the cell block but is stopped.

"Uh, uh," Beth says. "You're helping me till this is done."

Maggie looks at the pile of laundry still waiting to shaken out and hung, looks at her baby sister, and smiles like she knows she's been caught. "F_i_ne."


	16. Chapter 16

_**Hi, it's been a while; thank you to everyone who is reading, following and reviewing, I so appreciate the support/feedback as I delve into writing for a fandom so new to me (writing-wise). This story kind of hit a wall for me — I have notions of scenes I want to portray, but working them into a coherent story has been proving challenging so I've just been forcing myself to write despite it, so that's what this and the next few chapters I'm still working on are going to be; I hope they're not so terrible as to drive readers away, and I hope it will come around to shaping up again. I think an essential problem is two years ago I wanted to write a Beth/Daryl story but I for some reason — I guess mostly because the show and his character have been so reticent in this respect — keep throwing up roadblocks, and I guess I'm struggling with character motivation. [Which, yes, basically sounds like I have no business writing then, but my hope is that writing through it will eventually get it somewhere. We'll see.] Thank you for sticking with it!**_

* * *

At the top of the steel staircase in D Block, oiling and tightening his bow, Daryl sits absently watching Luke, Molly, and Mika play some game of their own invention. He watches, his eyelids lazy, as they discuss at length the rules and parameters of the made up game. When Molly starts complaining that they're not playing fair he speaks up, "Hey—" all three children stop and look up at the regent alpha male. He flicks his wrist, waving an arrow at them, "Ya'll should go outside. Get some exercise. Get some sunlight." He scratches his bearded jaw, "Ya'll got all winter to be shut up in here."

"Daryl," Molly asks, "is your—"

"It's '_Mr. Dixon_'," interjects Mika, the most recent arrival of them all, having not been a Woodbury transplant like both Molly and Luke.

"'_Daryl's_' fine," he grunts. The laurels of leadership sit uneasily on his brow, and living on top of on another as they all do leaves little room for formality. Least of all with the youngest members of their growing group.

Molly stands and asks her question again, "Is your leg broken?"

"Uh, uh," he shakes his head.

"It's your knee, right?" Luke asks.

"Yup."

Mika blinks, "Are you gonna be all _right_?" Daryl had been there, the day Ms. Carol had been there to save her father and her sister from the monsters — the day her family was brought in from the road. He helped save them, and the way people talk, he does the same thing every day. He has to be all right.

"Yeah, Mi," Daryl nods, tightening his scope bolts, "Ih'm fine."

The kids look at him. "Can you, still, go outside the fences?"

"Can you still hunt?"

Their questions do not faze him; time might have been when he would've let the unfiltered incessant precocious questions of children get on his nerves, but not now. Luke, Molly, Mika, Lizzie, Charlotte — all the kids of the prison — if they're not family, they're something close enough to it — neighbors at the least — and they've got the right to be kids, while they can be. "Not today."

"But…" Luke hedges.

"Yeh, little man," Daryl nods. "I'm good." Griping the banister Daryl pulls himself up, keeping his weight on his balancing hand and his good leg, "Nobody's starving."

"We didn't mean_ that_, Daryl," Molly says, hesitant to smile at him.

"Mean what?" he shrugs it off, smiling crookedly at them and essentially hopping down the stairs one step at a time.

"Didn't mean what?" Carol enters the cell block carrying in a laundry basket.

"Hi, Carol."

"Mika," Carol smiles, and rests the basket on her hip. She watches Daryl descend the steps. "Thought you were supposed to be resting."

"Yeh, look'a me," he scoffs, remarking dryly, "can't believe I'm still breathing."

Taking his hand as he takes the last step down Carol smirks, and reaches for Hershel's old crutch where he'd left it against the railing. "You're pitiful, you know that?" she smiles warmly.

"Yeh," he nods, beleaguered, "go'_o-_n. Pile it on."

"Mika, Molly, Luke? Come put the bedding away, please. Mika, Honey," she passes off the basket to the tallest of the three children.

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Luke, change out the pillow cases in all kids' bunks, please."

The young curly haired boy nods and Daryl holds out his hand to him for a high-five as he passes, watching as the children rise, take the basket, and pile the freshly laundered sheets and blankets on the large shelving structure built from old wood pallets. "You could let 'em play."

Carol looks from him to the kids, never rethinking her directive. "Children need to know to do their part, to know adults won't always be there for them." Daryl's narrow eyes shift and in silence knowingly take her in, measuring her frame of mind by the now unspoken of events of the past. He bites his lip, blinks, and lets it drop. "We've all got jobs to do."

"_Heh_," he grunts. "Lotta good I am."

Carol looks at him with that maternal half-smile of hers, "You're worth more to us than your knee."

"Yeh," Daryl remarks dryly.

"A whole lot more."

"Got no use right now. Can't put weight on it, can't do any of the building 'r repairs around here. Can't work the cull."

"Please," she says, "keep listing all the ways you're useless; keep it coming." She shakes her head at him, "You sulk with the best of 'em you know."

"Stop."

"What are you doing in here anyway? Take over a watch; go clean and load the guns. Sharpen blades. Pick weeds; water needs pumping. You could probably dig out the trench again just sitting on the bank. Hell, fold laundry."

_"Al'right_. I get it."

"Good." She smiles.

"So," he takes a step past her with the crutch, "ya want me to fold your clothes? Point the way," he smirks through his bark

"It's all done."

"_Damn_," Daryl grins.

"Com'on, Cupcake. We'll find you a stool; you can run the grill tonight."

* * *

Hershel turns over his six-four piece and pushes the domino into place in the game, marking for himself another four points to the chicken scratch tally. "How's your knee?"

Daryl looks up from his own tiles, grunting as he lays down the six-two, earning him nothing, "'S good."

His next domino in hand, Hershel pauses before making his play, and looks across the library table at Daryl, "You need to rest it." He glances at him, "You weren't exactly bedridden today."

"Hmph," he grunts, "like you?" With his thumb Daryl scratches at his eyebrow then gestures at Hershel, "You were up an' walkin' pretty much _day of_ after you woke up."

"In case it's missed on you, my leg wasn't going to get any worse; certainly wasn't going to grow back. _You _need to recover — you're leg'll be as good as ever if you let it heal." Daryl absently drums his fingers on the back of the chair he's sitting in in reverse, keeping his eyes fixed on the evening game he's not terribly invested in. "Daryl," Hershel says again, "the most important part of treating a knee injury is _resting _your knee. If you want it to recover properly, you've got to keep all weight off it." He's still holding onto his piece, seemingly waiting on making his move until Daryl says or does something, but he does nothing. "R_e_st will help decrease the swelling." At last he sets down his tile and Daryl glances at him through his long hanging greasy hair, then sets down his four-three for a score of two points; Hershel adds the marks to his tally.

"I'm usin' your crutches." Hershel's next play pushes Daryl into the bone yard, and he smirks at Hershel before diving in, "_Ai_n't I?" Hershel grants this with a slow nod.

"Push yourself n_o_w, you'll slow your whole recovery down. Maybe cause permanent damage. In a day or two, we'll start applying heat, bring down the inflammation." Daryl's eyes lift to his, solemnly looking him over, then drops them again and nods. Daryl finally pulls a piece he can play, but in his next turn Hershel makes his final play, winning the round and scoring an additional five points from Daryl's extra tiles.

Hershel makes the tics then turns over the dominos one by one and Daryl goes to work shuffling them across the tabletop. As he draws his new hand Hershel's soft grey eyes look at Daryl from beneath shaggy oversized white brows, "How's Elizabeth?"

Daryl's hands pause mid-shuffle, it's so rare anyone, even Hershel, uses her full name, and he's not especially up for another Beth talk with Hershel, finding himself in short supply of ready answers anyway. "She's good." Without making eye contact Daryl pulls his next tiles uttering, "Hasn't gone nowhere."

Hershel nods, and puts down the double five spinner to start, and Daryl grimaces good-naturedly as the old man racks up another two points. "Daughters," he says, adding two more ticks, "don't always talk to their fathers."

Daryl glances at him with an arched brow, then plays a five-zero, "I wouldn't know."

Hershel chuckles. "No, I guess you wouldn't." Turns swap back and forth, the round moving quickly between them. Hershel rubs his leg where it fits into his prosthetic, "Didn't mean anything by it."

"Don't worry about it." Daryl taps a domino against the wood surface, absently in repetition.

Under watchful brows Hershel observes him, then sighs and his kind soft eyes crease at their corners, "Children and their fathers… It's never not complicated."

Daryl looks at him, then makes his play. "Guess not."

Daryl's bad leg starts jostling in place where it rests and Hershel's eyes land on it. "You're lucky it wasn't anything worse."

"Ain't no such thing as luck no more, there's just: not bein' dead."

"Son, I don't believe you think that."

"Yeah? Why's that?"

Hershel looks at him with meaning, holding the gaze longer than Daryl's comfortable with before he blinks, and palms his last domino, "Bec_aus_e—" his voice compels Daryl to meet his eyes "—this life you've been living? Every part of it?" Daryl blinks. "I've been living it longer." Hershel lays down his final play, not bothering with the score sheet — he's won, by a margin. The old man pushes himself up from the table as he rises and crosses the library to the exit. "I know your story, Daryl. I'm watching you, but I know your story." And he exits into the hall leaving Daryl alone at the table with his wrecked knee, and too much in his head.

* * *

_**So, these two little scenes feel pretty choppy still to me, and I can't say they're essential, but I don;t want it all to be Beth & Daryl, and I'm trying to give their story context. That's it for now, I'm working on trying to get this a little more on track. Thanks for sticking around! :)**  
_


	17. Chapter 17

Beth looks up from her bunk when a shadow darkens her cell. Daryl stands in her doorway, his hands gripped on the frame above him; hanging there, stretching his arms and leaning further forward into the room, his toothbrush clamped down roguishly at the side-back of his jaw, he looks steadily at her. "Hey."

Beth sits up. "Hey."

"Whut'ch'ya doin'?"

Beth looks about her cell then back at him. "Right now?" She isn't doing anything, she had been reading.

Daryl nods silently, his eyes staying right on her. "Goin' to bed?"

Her bright eyes flit up to his. Though he spends more nights in her cell than in his own, it isn't a set thing or a fixed routine. Rarely does it happen that they consciously settle in at the same time — one might be on a late watch shift, or finishing work, or soothing the baby. Some nights she's come back to her room and found him already asleep, mostly he slips in beside her some time in the night. But he's there now, with an indiscernible look in his eyes, quiet, and stealthy, waiting for something unspoken. Her eyes wide and watchful, Beth nods. "Mm,hm."

She sets her book aside and rises, and at that small prompting Daryl takes a step inside and draws close behind him her curtain. Beth dips her own toothbrush in the glass of water each prisoner keeps beside their cell's sinks for just that purpose, rations out a bit of toothpaste from her crumpled nearly used-up tube, and brushes her teeth.

No further into the room than he'd first stepped, Daryl, taking support from her bunk frame when he needs it to take pressure off his knee he bends down and one by one tugs off his leather boots then single-handedly undoes his belt, his brush still hanging from his lips. Finished, and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand Beth turns from the sink toward him. He winks benignly at her, and in return she smiles primly. Then Daryl lets his pants drop and steps out of them in his bare-feet, keeping a loose grip on the top bunk all the while. His shirt remains on — as it always does until the lights go out, sometimes not even then — as he sits at the edge of her bed, waiting for her to take her place in bed nearest the wall. It's unspoken that this is where she sleeps, Daryl on the outside of her — Daryl always in the ready for action, Daryl between the outside world and those he holds dearest to him. It might be nothing more than unconscious instinct, but he's never slept beside her any other way.

Beth's cutoffs have been quickly replaced by her thin summer pajama bottoms, and even quicker, with her back to him, her tanks and bra are switched out for a light cotton top. There's a hole at her side beneath her arm as clothes scrubbed on metal grates don't fair well over time, but at least they're clean, and at nightfall when newly donned, have the effect of a revival — at once soothing and invigorating. Closer to him now, her pale knee rests beside him on the mattress as she stands before him, and runs her fingers through his coarse and tangled hair as he looks up at her mutely. Behind all his sweat and scruff his hard blue eyes keep fixed on her, despite, from several cells down, the blubbering fretful cry of Judith sounds. With just the slightest outstretch of his fingers, Daryl takes hold fondly of her leg, lightly stroking her soft skin with his thumbs. Judith's cries grow louder — lately it's been much harder to put her down for the night, all she does is wail. As the baby's cry muffles and breaks now and then it is evident someone, no doubt Rick, is cradling her and bouncing her in efforts to soothe her. Touching her palm to his brow, Beth holds the side of his face as she smiles at him just before she reaches to switch off her lamp.

Within the cold padless walls of the cell block the cries turn to shrieks, breathless, unrelenting, piercing wails of an infant who cannot be consoled echoing against the concrete walls of the prison. Daryl looks at her, loosening his grip on her leg; the pitiful hapless screaming grows even louder and then — there's a rapping on her metal gate. "Beth?" Rick's outside her room and Beth moves quickly to the curtain, already reaching for the baby as she steps through. Rick is as apologetic as he can be relinquishing the desperately inconsolable child off to the young woman. "I'm sorry."

Beth bounces her and cradles her, holding her upright, holding her close. The result is not immediate, the cries persist, but Judith clings tightly to Beth and as she cries the heaving of her small chest lessens and she buries her wet face into Beth's neck. "It's fine," she says to Rick as he watches regrettably as the small fair figure paces with his forlorn child, whispering into her ear and humming a tune.

The cries muffle, and grow less frequent, as Beth strokes the baby's back and pets and kisses her soft downy head. Rick releases a pent up breath in one great exhale and leans back against the cell wall, listening as his daughter calms herself in the care of a young girl who never should have been saddled with the job.

Beth, barefoot and clad for bed continues walking with the baby, passing through the gates into the nearly pitch black common room. The moon is only a sliver this night, and the light streaming in through the windows is faint. Beth rocks the child, and sings softly to her.

_Shadows are fallin' and I've been here all day_

_It's too hot to sleep and time is runnin' away_

_Feel like my soul has turned into steel_

_I've still got the scars that the sun didn't heal_

_There's not even room enough to be anywhere_

_It's not dark yet but it's gettin' there_

Judith's breaths slow and grow gradually more shallow, and in time her body slackens, no longer rigid and fighting but docile, and cuddly, and ready for sleep.

When Judith's settled and softly dozing, Beth passes her back to her father. Holding his sleeping daughter to him, Rick embraces Beth by the back of her head, pulls her in and presses a kiss to her forehead. "Thank you," he says in earnest. "Go to bed."

Beth nods, and smiles. "Good night."

* * *

**"Not Dark Yet," Bob Dylan, _Time Out of Mind_, 1997.**

_**A/N: To clarify, while he had an understandable and very evident rough start with Judith, Rick is very much a parent to Judith — I am not of the mindset of re-appropriating his parental role to other characters, but that said, Beth, and other characters including Carol, do seem to spend a lot of her waking hours with her while Rick goes on runs, farms, etc.. I see this scene as evidence of a phase through which Judith will eventually pass.**_


	18. Chapter 18

_**Thank you for the feedback and follows, especially as this meanders a little. Thank you! So, this chapter got a little unwieldy; as mentioned in the last A/N not sure I totally stand by this rendition of Daryl, but here it goes... **_**:)**

* * *

Returning to her room, Beth leans against the door jam and peeks in: Daryl's still up, sitting back in the bed, his good knee up, his bad one up and supported beneath by a sweater of hers he'd balled up and put into position. He looks up from her sketchpad he'd been leafing through. Suddenly there's a shy smile on his face, and she rounds the door frame, re-closing the blue curtain behind her, and steps inside, the faintest trace of a smile on her lips. "Sorry," she whispers.

Daryl shrugs as his face scrunches at her, "No reason t' be." He watches, stilly, resolutely, as she takes the several steps toward her bed, and to him.

Beth reaches and switches off her lantern and crawls over him into her bed, but she never makes it to her side; hovering above him Beth looks into his lined, rugged face, and she does not smile. Instead she kisses him, feeling his chest heave and rise beneath her. Daryl entwines his fingers in her yellow hair, twisting his forefinger in her small braid, and enjoys the weight of her slight body on his, the touch of her thin crisp cotton garments, and the brush of her lips against his. He can hear her holding her breath as she kisses him and he knows at some point she will be pulling away from him, but until she does his tongue finds hers, drawing her into to him, but never all at once, and never with full abandon. Daryl wants her, but is exercising restraint.

He can't nail why.

But Beth is not interested in his restraint. She loves him. Has loved him these many weeks, longer maybe. And so his eyes follow her as she raises herself up from him and pulls off her top. This — the vision of her above him, her messy blonde locks tumbling down about her down onto him, and her small, perfect white breasts right there before him — is by far his favorite view in this world. Daryl reaches up to touch her, cupping, kneading, pushing, and she holds his large rough hands to her, welcoming his touch, keeping it on her. In turn Beth's delicate fingers, that so much of her life were employed at her family's piano, and brushing her horse, and writing in her journal, reach down and unbutton his shirt, pushing it open and trace down his chest. Her light touch trails over his scars, over his tattoo, over numerous bruises. Electrified, Daryl allows the touch, watching her pretty face take him in as her hands do, though soon his hands slip from her to her back and draw her down to him, pulling her close, his lips meeting hers, his tried muscled arms tightly enfolding her.

Beth's mouth travels from his lips to his jaw, to his ears, and the soft nook in his neck. His breathing quickens, his arousal heightens, and Beth's with him. There is a swelling, throbbing anticipation mounting between them and he sits up to meet her, looking up into her soft angelic face as he licks and bites and kisses her chest, her collarbone, every bit of her in access to him, never breaking his lock on her river-blue eyes. Beth's hands venture to his waistband as his round back behind her, grasping her firmly, claiming her as his had she not so willingly already given herself over to him. Daryl's breath shudders and hilts as her hands find him beneath the worn fabric of his drawers, taking him in her grasp, watching him with her wide doe-like eyes as he breathes her in.

Bringing her lips to his chest, Beth allows her tongue to linger on his skin, tasting the the salt and the scent of him; strategically her hips shift on his until he visibly flinches and his eyes roll shut in a combination of pleasure and frustration. Clumsily the girl guides Daryl's hands round to her hips, asking him, telling him, to take from her her shorts and what's beneath, her last remaining articles of clothing, and with them, so, so much more.

He would like to, _love_ to, is more than ready to, but while taking a girl to bed, this girl, Beth Greene, is tempting as hell—

When her hand moves cunningly between them again to take him in her hold, Daryl, with casual ease, reaches down and stops her — again. Holding firm to her wrist he looks her straight in her pretty fluttering blue eyes. "Hold up." His lips fractionally parted, he watches her intently.

"Daryl..." Beth kisses him, softly, tugging at his bottom lip with hers, asking him, in the best way she knows how, for him to get out of his head and to be there with her and to not—

"St_o_p," he directs her, gently turning his head away from her, breaking the kiss, and breaking the momentum. Through angled eyes once more he looks at her. "You done this before?" His gaze drops to where her narrow hips straddle his own, then back up to her.

Beth's soft eyes blink, and her flushed lips move to speak before her words come. "I—" she starts. "Kind of. It—"

He cuts her off with a paternal scoff. "'Kind of'?" Daryl's head shakes, and one corner of his mouth lifts in the traces of a smile for her. "Whatever you did do? It wasn't 'it'. _Heh_; you would kn_o_w."

"Well—"

He stops her; Daryl doesn't want a play by play of the adolescent fumblings of her past— "We don't have to do this."

Beth props herself up and looks at him soberly. "Why's that?" The question stops him, asked with that half-laughing smile she sometimes gets that charms and cajoles him and everyone else into truth telling. Beth could laugh, or smile, or flutter-her-long-graceful-lashes him into doing anything probably, so why_ is_ he keeping his foot on the breaks? On a thing he's near aching to see through?

Is it her age? Is it her evident inexperience? Is it _him_?

All around him he's watched the people in their group slip back into some sort of regular life. There's story time, and a card group, and someone in A is trying to get a softball game going. But Daryl can't fully do it. He can't as easily slip back into the shape of a normal life. Nothing in the prison life is the shape of his norm before, and though he can relax, shoot the shit, have some laughs, he's never cavalierly shut out the threat of danger they all live under. He doesn't know what's in the others' minds, but Daryl Dixon can't ignore all that's out there beyond the fences.

And inexplicably he can't extricate that from this.

Michonne. Michonne's the only one more resistant to settling down than he is. Something about it — the settling down, the getting too comfortable, the being _happy_ on top of _living_ — it seems off to him. Settling down with Beth, being this close with her, making like things'll turn out all right in the end, it seems... foolhardy, and beside the point, and something like tempting fate. _Reckless_.

Staying close to her is one thing, but taking it further, making it _that_ real, getting _that_ close, is it putting something at risk he isn't prepared to lose? Losing Beth, to walkers, to bandits, to his dumb-ass redneck blunderings and inevitable failings — to all of it or any of it — is not an option. He wants her. This night, the next day, down the road. For as long as he has. And keeping her, is worth more to him than—

Her hands take hold of his face, softly cradling him in her touch, drawing Daryl out of his head, out of the darkness that weighs on him, and back, she hopes, to her, and to this moment when they are safe, and they are together, and they are able to love. Daryl's eyes lift to her, he wants to take that cherub mouth with his and to keep his hands on her in unchecked passion, and the desire to simultaneously cherish and defile her all at once, rages through him. There _is_ something to living while they're alive, and, bare-chested and breathing heavily, an earthly beauty in a messy halo of golden hair, Beth absolutely is _alive_.

She is beautiful. Fresh-faced, nubile, and tempting as hell, and in his younger days Daryl might have taken her ten times over by now, but Daryl hopes he's a better man than he once was, and if an eighteen-year-old girl, who he's pretty sure he's in love with, isn't sure her past experience amounts to what would 'count' as sex, he's not convinced he should be taking her up on her offer just yet, the uncertainty of the world be damned. But that resolve dissipates as she snuggles in closely, nibbling at his neck, running her hands down him, and entwining her soft, shapely legs with his. Once more her artful fingers reach his waistband and once more he pushes her away.

"Wha...?"

"Beth," he says flatly. "Just stop."

Her eyes blink in her naiveté, "Daryl...?"

"It's a prick," he throws out dispassionately, edged with accusation. "That's all. I've had it tugged and sucked and fucked plenty. It doesn't matter; that's over." He shifts away from her. "We're here to survive, not get off."

Keeping her reaction measured Beth pulls herself off him and sits back against the prison wall. "You think Maggie and Glenn are any less serious about surv_i_vin'? You think they're any less strong?" He wishes to God she'd find her shirt. "It's made them stronger," she counters. "And you kn_o_w it."

His narrow eyes shooting her a challenge in immediate response, Daryl pushes himself up on his elbows, "You think I need to be stronger?"

"No."

"_Do_ you?"

"No."

At this point he's sitting upright, talking straight to her, no longer even registering she's in bed with him half naked. "Who depends on me?"

"Rick. The group. Ehv'rybody."

"Right. I don't know when I took that on, but I did; and I can't put that down." He looks up at her through lowered lids and his mangy hair, "Beth," his mouth hinges at one corner, "loving you — don't make me stronger I think." His brow arches as he looks at her in doubt, "I'm not Glenn. If anythin'," and he maybe thinks about saying this out loud before he does, but in the end he does say it: "you're a liability for me." Beth winces, but keeps her expression composed. "You're a distraction I can't afford if a whole group of people's looking to me. If I'm o_u_t there, thinking about coming back to _you_," he squints, and bites his lip as he grunts, "I might get cautious."

"_No_," she argues. "Daryl, I don't even know what you're talking about. You didn't come in here tonight to tell me I'm a 'liability'. I know that. And whatever you just said is crap. Because you _are _cautious. That's part of being smart. You don't trust strangers, you—"

Daryl gropes till he finds it and chucks her shirt at her. She looks at him and at it, then tugs it on. "That ain't at'all what I'm talking about." He exhales. "If I'm thinking me not coming back is going to hurt you—"

"Stop it," she orders, not even knowing how they got to this point. His reactionary attempts to back step away from her are fear driven, and while they're all afraid, she's not letting this fear take hold. "It's too late for all that," she tells him plainly. "I love you. _There._ It's d_o_ne. Deal with. I _already_ want you back. And there's nothing that'll change that. But you gotta be who you are. And you've gotta want to come back on your own, and you've gotta want to look out for the _group_ not me. And I will love you till the day I die, but you can't take that into your hands. If I die I die. And if you die my heart will break, but it wouldn't be my fault, and it won't be yours; and I'll be God damned if I won't keep you and have you from now until then, and you're a damned coward if you try to break away from me now. It's too late. And it's no good." Finally she breathes.

Daryl squints at her with a shift in his stature, "Ya done?"

"Are _you_? I'm with you Daryl, I _a_m. Don't push me away."

"Wasn't."

"You _were_," she says, as always keeping him honest. "You think I'm a liability because everyone sees me as weak: I'm the one who gets sent off to hide, who doesn't go on runs, who doesn't clear. Who doesn't go outside the gates. I'm the one," she says with weight, "who lost hope and cut her wrist." Daryl grimaces; of all things he hadn't meant to bring that up. He hadn't meant to make her think he sees her that way. "But I'm not useless, I c'n take care of myself. I can shoot a gun. I can kill walkers."

"I know."

"Then..." she pauses for the words, "stop keeping me at arms length."

Daryl holds both his hands up to chest level as indication he isn't treating her the way she's accused him. Then his hands reach out and slip into her hair— "Whut? _These _arms?" —and take hold of her head pulling her to him. He kisses her, firmly, like he knows he should, and fervently, because there's no denying she gets to him. And that a lot of that was just blustering — he can't walk away. And maybe he _is_ scared, of things that have been haunting him a lot longer than the walking dead. But if Beth Greene can take this on, he guesses he can stop being a pussy about it and man up.

_In his head at least. _

_For at least one night more her bed remains chaste.  
_


	19. Chapter 19

_**Just a little something, nothing crucial. (I think in the show Carl actually has his own room, which makes sense, but I changed it.)**_

* * *

In the morning, like she does every morning, Beth walks the couple curtained cell doors down C block. Beth moves hesitantly into the doorway to Rick's cell as morning light just starts to spill through the long windows of the prison. His curtain's only half drawn but still she knocks lightly before pulling it aside all the way and entering. "Yeh," Rick clears his throat. "Come in."

Beth steps in quietly. "Mornin'."

"Beth," Rick rubs at his brow then sets his hands on his thighs — feeling badly and slightly embarrassed about the night before — "come in." Beth moves several steps further in, but Carl's sprawled out across the top bunk still sleeping, and she doesn't like to intrude. "Beth," the father looks up at her, his eyes still weary from his late night and his long days in the gardens, "I'm sorry about last night. I shouldn't have imposed."

"Rick," she smiles placidly, "it's fine. Really."

"It's just, when she's tired, or really upset, she—"

"I know," she nods. "She's only interested in women. I've been noticing." She leans over the crib and gives her hand to the waking Judith. "Carol. Sasha," she names absently.

"It may be women," Rick agrees with a small definitive nod, "but it's _you_ she's reaching for." Rick stands, at a loss he scratches the back of his head, "I'm fine with her," he sighs, "most of the time; in the days. But these last weeks — at night — I can't get her to soothe."

Beth nods. "It's just a phase," she tells him. No matter her investment in the little girl, and the hours and hours she spends with her feeding her, changing her, talking to her, cradling her, singing to her, playing with her, Beth does not see herself as a surrogate parent, and is careful that Rick not lose his footing with his daughter. "Carol, all the moms, all say it's normal…"

Rick nods. "I know. I know. Carl went through it too. There was a month or two there — maybe it just felt that long — I couldn't get close to him except maybe five minutes a day. Lori never got a rest."

Beth smiles softly. "See? It'll pass. It's normal."

But Rick doesn't take it any easier, he rubs brutally at his eyes. "'_Normal_'," he grunts. "Doesn't seem 'normal' passing your child off on the shoulders of an eighteen-year-old girl. In the middle of the night."

Beth wonders if it should bother her more than it does, it seems clearly to bother Rick. Honestly she loves Judith, and it doesn't seem to her too much is being asked of her to help out where Judith is concerned. Rick's done much more — even Carl has — for the group than babysitting. "Like I said, it's fine." She looks to him for a signal of allowance for her to go ahead and lift the baby from her bed as she would any other morning. With lingering regret Rick nods. Beth reaches down and scoops Judith up. "It won't last forever," she adds. "And," Beth looks at Rick over the baby's head, her lips a kiss away from Judith's downy head, "it isn't an imposition."

On the top bunk Carl stirs, and glancing up Beth sees him stop mid stretch as he spots her in his room. It's routine most mornings for the girl to come in the early hours and fetch his baby sister for all or at least part of the day, but Beth Greene, if not the first, is the last person he wants standing at the foot of his bunk when he first wakes up. And that she's aware of it makes it all the more awkward — "Mornin'," she smiles vaguely before turning away from him.

Carl's head drops back on his mattress. "M_o_rn-_i_ng," he mutters into his pillow. Still though, he's not so much embarrassed, as he is drowsy; Carl possesses that distinct adolescent air of not giving a crap about anything — whether he would prefer to be alone with Beth without his father or his baby sister, or whether he'd like Beth out of his room altogether isn't clear, he behaves as if she's nothing to him, and her seeing him undressed for sleep is no big deal. In fact it's not; whatever he'd once hoped Beth Greene would be to him, she _is _family. Everyone on C block is family, and sleeping in shorts and no shirt really is of no consequence to her, or even to himself. Given all this, Carl still makes no significant move to rise from bed.

"I don't know why _you're_ in the bad mood," Rick chuckles, knocking his hand against his son's barefoot where it hangs over the bunk edge, "you slept through all the crying last night." Rick shakes his head as he fastens his belt buckle, "Don't know how."

Sitting up, Carl pulls cotton from his ears as answer. "Easy."

"Well," Beth starts, adjusting the child on her hip and reaching into the basket for fresh clothes for Judith, "I got watch midday." She looks at Carl.

The fourteen-year-old nods. "I'll take her. I'll find you guys at lunch."

"We're going to start sewing in the turnips and potatoes today," Rick tells him.

Carl nods, "I'll be there. Judith can sit in the shade, I'll bring down a blanket."

"She'll, uh," Beth interjects, "swallow the dirt; if you let her."

Carl looks at his little sister with dry amusement, "That's gr_o_ss."

Rick tousles the teen's head with a smile, "I could tell you a few stories." Carl only rolls his eyes, then stretches. Pulling the covers off, swings his naked legs over the edge, then jumps down, and rummages around for his pants.

At this point Beth would ordinarily leave with Judith, but she lingers in Rick's cell, staying long enough for him to question her. "Beth? Something on your mind?"

Beth nods, looks down at the baby, then back up at Rick. "The snares, and traps you have out in the woods?"

"Yeah?"

"I'd like to help with that." She looks from Rick to Carl then back to Rick as she swallows slightly and smiles primly, "I think I'd be good at it."

"Beth, it's dangerous."

"Everything's dangerous," she defuses. "I want to be of more use."

"You don't need to take this risk," Rick tells her, not venturing to say she's already of great use to the prison (especially while his own child sits happily in her arms).

Beth glances at Carl, debating whether she should say this in front of him, but in the end she does, "More of us should now how to do things, Rick." The implication being (as so often it still is): _What if something happens?... _"We should all know how to do the things that keep us running. We just should. And I learn quickly and I'm careful." She looks at him with those earnest Beth Greene eyes, "I just want to learn."

Out of rebuttals Rick looks at her then finally nods. "Al'right. But you're gonna work on your slip knots and snare knots inside the fences first."

"Deal." Beth smiles, her dimples working their magic, and lifts Judith, taking with her a change of clothes and a fresh diaper, and leaves to start the day.


End file.
